Contributed by Curtis Hawley
I had previously written about being new to the fine gardening scene and all the great teachers I’ve had along the way giving timely advice and demonstrating proper technique to accomplish standout results. Well, last season I had an opportunity to pay this knowledge forward working with a fellow new gardener, Liz. Liz has had the desire to beautify her property for the 3 years since moving there but wanted to avoid the uncertainty that comes with a new venture. Christie worked with Liz to understand her desired goals and came up with a design to channel these energies. That’s where I came in.
Liz and I set out on an early Saturday morning to do the first real groundbreaking on her new front garden beds. We were both excited. This was my first experience working one-on-one with a client implementing a new design and Liz finally got to start working on her garden that up until now had only been an idea. We dove right into our work. We transplanted Peonies and daylilies, defined/redefined bed edges, graded out beds and then began planting Hydrangeas and Persicaria.
We were making great progress! I was preparing the beds, barely able to keep a step ahead of Liz who quickly became a whiz at transplanting and proper planting techniques with the new plants being added to her garden. As we progressed nicely and the garden was beginning to take shape some of the axioms of my mentors came to mind: slow down and most importantly HAVE FUN! So I started pulling Liz back away from our work so we could actually look at what we were doing, visualizing the end result and even playing around with the original design a little bit (don’t tell Christie).
It was a great experience to see another new gardener full of ideas and pos
itive energy taking to gardening so enthusiastically. Our newest gardener was off to a great start and when I left she was already thinking of the placement of some nice beach rocks she had collected and how to add those to her garden. That’s when I knew my job was done and I could leave confident that another gardener was well on her way.
