WHY GARDEN IF IT IS SO DIFFICULT?

Well, mostly because you love your garden!

But it also does wonderful things for your mental state, your physical state and even your emotional state! Why else would we have been doing it all these years? We truly love to get our hands and jeans dirty. Dirt under the fingernails tells the world we are gardeners, and of that, we're proud! I can remember my mother wore red nail polish, not to look sexy, but to cover the dirt that hid under those nails. The dirt that refused to wash, or be scrubbed out. Garden dirt is tough to remove!

How wonderful it is to have perfect strangers walk up to you when you're out there on your knees and tell you how great that garden looks. They love to see it every time they pass by. In fact, many people choose to walk that way BECAUSE of your garden. That's a genuine HIGH! Along those same lines, how many folks have you gotten to know because of your garden? It's like little children and puppy dogs... everyone stops to admire them. It's a reason to get to know new people and connect with your neighbors.

Even when we were younger and able to garden easily, we came inside and ached with sore muscles. We expected that, it kind of came with the territory. Unlike now (at our "advanced" age) it didn't create limits, it just made us stiff for a few hours. At any rate, that tells you that when we garden we are actually exercising! It's GOOD for us. As long as we know our limitations and stop before we get SORE, or begin to really hurt, we're working those muscles and it's good for us!

CHORES FOR DECEMBER

DECEMBER

If you can, dig a hole to put your live holiday tree in. Store the soil you dig out in the garage, or other non-frozen place so you can just dump it into the hole after the tree is planted!

Have you made "tee-pee's" to cover your smaller shrubs, protecting them from snow loads? Be sure they are out in the garden, doing their job! You can also wrap the plants, or shrubs in burlap.

Plant your pre-cooled bulbs in pots for some wonderful indoor color. Put them first in a cool and dark spot to begin growing roots. Water them, so they don't dry out.

If you haven't done it yet, put stakes around your gardens bordering driveways and roads where plowed snow might harm them. The stakes will guide the plow elsewhere!

Think about gardening tools, equipment and books as Christmas gifts.

Take a gardening break!

Any questions about December?

THE NAME OF THE GAME

Now that I've kind of defined what an aging gardener might be (and be thinking), perhaps we should think of what it might be that ails him or her.
Let's talk about common "afflictions". There's arthritis which is probably the most common. There are new joints that should, but perhaps don't bend quite the way they used to. There are heart conditions that render us exhausted after we've barely gotten started, to say nothing of scaring us when we get breathless or have some pain. Oh, and have you tried to get UP after getting down? Now THERE'S a killer! That tells us that sometimes there isn't really a label to put to some of these things, other than "I'm getting old, I guess!".
This list could go on indefinitely. How about carting the cane out in the garden and having IT sink into the mud? Are there some of you in wheel-chairs? That would be a real challenge. That would also help the rest of us realize that "There but for the grace of God, go I". Let's therefore, try to live with this stuff and try getting out in the garden.
Oh, if you haven't gotten a tetanus shot in the last 10 years? Talk to your Doctor about that. Being limited is bad enough, let's not be DEAD!