Slow Gardening(Tm)

"Nothing is worth more than this day."  Goethe

It's a no-brainer, comparing modern gardens to how we eat. In just a couple or three generations we've gone from eating mostly home-cooked food, and gardening with mostly local resources, to routine fast-food and "mow-and-blow" landscapes filled with plants from afar.

Waistlines have been supersized while garden sizes have withered. Why bother to grow when you can just run to the store and get prepackaged? Instead of sowing saved seed, we buy uniform hybrids by the six-pack, shipped to us at a huge cost. Sure, we've shed a lot of the menial work of putting both food on the table and flowers in the garden, but at what cost to the connections with the Earth that our ancestors took for granted?

Slow Gardening(Tm) to the rescue! Similar to Slow Food, an international movement started in Italy in the 1980s by convivial connoisseurs who savor producing, preparing and consuming traditional in-season dishes, a Slow Gardening approach can help us enjoy our gardens year in and year out - employing all our senses - and possibly connect us with our neighbors.

Slow Gardening isn’t lazy or passive gardening – it actually involves doing more stuff, carefully selected to be productive without senseless, repetitive chores. By focusing on seasonal rhythms and local conditions, it helps the gardener get more from the garden while better appreciating how leisure time - and energy are spent. 

Take it easy. Think "long haul" and take your time. Life has lots of pressures - why include them in the garden?

Grow plants of all descriptions - native or well-adapted - that like your climate and provide something for you and local wildlife through all seasons.

Get 'er done. You don't have to be an expert to garden, or even to work very hard. Cliches can help: No need to go whole hog right off the bat. Don't have to eat the whole enchilada.

Get together. Gardeners have always been a sharing tribe, even amongst non-joiners.

Your garden provides natural opportunities to kick back, relax, step off the treadmill. Find a safe group of like-minded folks who won't impose their expectations onto you or your garden, grab a digging fork and slip right into the rhythm of the seasons.

Slow doesn't necessarily mean lazy!

Some ways of slowing down in the garden:

• Spread out your chores; do a little as you go, instead of loading up the weekend.
• Stop planting like farmers, all at once; plant what you need, when the season and weather are right. Plant raised beds and containers a little at a time, all year.
• Develop a long-term, relaxing garden pursuit such as bonsai or topiary, garden photography, seasonally-appropriate flower arranging, collecting or hybridizing cultivars of a favorite plant, composting, or bee keeping.
• Garden for all the senses – wind chimes are as important as nice fragrances.
• Right plant, right place - choose pest-resistant plants well-adapted to your local climate and soils, plant them well, and let them grow without being pushed. Try untested new plants in a small area.
• Have something in bloom every week, if not every day, of the year. Include plants that bloom in the evening, and notice the hawk moths that visit after dark.
• Carefully select and display sculpture or other garden art, for all-year inspiration.
• Grow your own – propagate enough plants for you and for friends or neighbors.
• Grow your own fruit. Make preserves to share with others.   
• Lose some of the lawn, making edges and corners easier to mow with less backing up. Lighten up on the fertilizers and pesticides, enjoy a few wildflowers.
• Let some hedges grow informally, instead of keeping everything tightly sheared.
• Design your landscape for people-comfort. Include all-weather seating, dry paving, shade in the summer, and wind protection in the winter.
• Install a fire pit and waterfall, and use them as occasional relief from television.
• When practical, use quiet hand tools over noisy power equipment. Keep digging and cutting tools sharp and efficient.
• Get personal with your weather - use a rain gauge and outdoor thermometer.
• Enjoy the sun - put up a small clothesline for favorite t-shirts, and make sun tea.
• Garden to encourage year-round wildlife. Include a well-stocked bird feeder.
• Compost. Better yet, just keep a neat leaf pile, letting it work on its own schedule.
• Take it easy on vacation - visit public botanic gardens, and walk around older neighborhoods to savor what is grown locally by hands-on gardeners.
• Shop at a farmer’s market for in-season, locally-grown produce.
• Take advantage of area garden lectures, seminars, and shows.
• Browse good gardening sites on the Internet. Check out recommended links.
• Ponder the mysteries of the universe, in the microcosm of your own back yard.
• Keep a garden journal, including photographs (digital is fast, easy, inexpensive).
• Share relaxing garden techniques and easy, rewarding plants with children.

Do better. As Steve Bender, senion garden writer for Southern Living Magazine puts it, "Maybe you can’t change the whole world. But by slightly modifying the way you garden, you can change your own back yard. And that’s a start."

_______________________________________________________________________________

A few selected "demotivators" that can apply to Slow Gardening:

"If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."

"Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us."

"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once."

"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour."

"Living on Earth is expensive - but it does include a free trip around the sun every year."

_______________________________________________________________________________

     Felder Rushing is a 10th-generation American gardener who has written, spoken and photographed widely in the gardening world. Among his numerous credits: host of Gestalt Gardening radio program, author or co-author of fifteen gardening books, contributing editor to Horticulture and Garden Design magazines and distinctly non-stuffy national board member of the American Horticultural Society. He has written and photographed for Fine Gardening, Organic Gardening, the National Geographic, Better Homes & Gardens, Landscape Architecture and many others.