Gardening for Seniors
ARE YOU IN A WHEELCHAIR?
and long to dig in the dirtand create flowering beauty and grow far more zucchinithan you can give away? Or are your knees just starting to age and even though you've loved gardening all your life, you're having more trouble getting up and down and are afraid you'll have to give upgardening altogether? Did you botch the last pruning of your roses because of the worsening arthritis inyour hands?
Welcome to the world of the physically challenged gardener.
Don't despair. Adapt!
There's plenty of help out there in the form of advice,tools, raised flower beds and other specialized equipment. A Google search of "Disabled gardening tools" leads to 125 websites with specific helpful adaptive equipment.
"Disabled gardening" gives a whopping 873,000 results where you can find advice and "handicapped gardening" yields 111,000. Let those arthritic fingers do your walking!
Problem: "The ground is just too far down there!"
Think about doing your gardening while sitting on a chair, instead of on the ground, squatting or bending over. The most obvious solution is to build raised flower beds and scatter containers throughout your garden area.
Buy cheap plastic outdoor chairs and place one beside each mini-garden so you don't have to dragor carry when it's time to weed. You can just sit down and enjoy the feel of moist earth beneath your fingers and breathe in the heavenly smell of freshly applied fish emulsion.
If you hang a cup holder on the edge of your container, you can even have the luxury of tea or coffee with your weeds. Maybe the fish emulsion should wait.
Don't think about what you've lost now that you can't crawl around weeding the perennial border; teach your grand child or a neighborhood kid the joy to be found doing that task ... you've just discovered a new adventure in gardening.
The good news is that you mayfind whole different special areas of your yard where you can stick a mini-garden.
Get creative.
Put a beautiful container near your front door and plant wonderfully scented flowers togreet your guests ... or perhaps a nice cherry tomato plant they can steal from on their way to ring your doorbell. Put a waist high herb garden right outside your kitchen door and add an area in it for your favorite cut flowers.
When you're deciding where to locate the raised bed or container, be sure to remember physically demanding practicalities like dragging a heavy hose to water it.
Think and plan a low energy solution for what you'll dowith the compost material.
Problem: "My painful hands don't have the strength for..."
You can get tools which extend your arms to reach the ground level flower bed from a sitting position. Several manufacturers make specially tools with lightweight handles designed to keep the wrist and hand in astress-free position and to provide a firmer grip. Small, light rakes, hoes, etc. like this can workwonders.
Think ratchet pruner, rachet lopping shears ... let thelaws of physics give your hands a hand. You'll be amazed when you look at the tools available. Pull difficult weeds by stepping on a lever.
Problem: "I get so tired so quickly."
Hey, the weeds didn't grow all at once; you don't haveto pull them all at once. Pace yourself. Find ways tomake gardening something you do while you sit and drink a cup of tea and listen to the birds, rather than awork chore you slave away at for a full afternoon. Pull one weed from the scented garden near your frontdoor on your way out and another weed on the way in. Plant parsley in your kitchen door herb garden while your toast is toasting and the coffee is dripping.
Buy and plant 3 packs of flowers instead of a whole flat. Take a nice aerobic walk around your yard,stopping at a different container for 5 minutes "conversation" with your plants on each cycle, then goback inside and plop on the recliner. You'll be amazed at how much gets done in these mini-work sessions. Your heart will love you, too.
A FEW THINGS TO REMEMBER.....
Remember, one of the nice things about flowers is they don't have anything to prove. We can all learn alesson from them.
Care of the Flower Garden
Knowing how to care for your flower garden can make a big difference in the look and over-all health of your plants. Here are some simple hints to make your garden bloom with health
1. The essentials must always be given major consideration.
Your flower garden must have an adequate supply of water, sunlight, and fertile soil. Any lack of these basic necessities will greatly affect the health of plants. Water the flower garden more frequently during dry spells.
When planting bulbs, make sure they go at the correct depth. When planting out shrubs and perennials, make sure that you don't heap soil or mulch up around the stem. If you do, water will drain off instead of sinking in, and the stem could develop rot through overheating.
2. Mix and match perennials with annuals.
Perennial flower bulbs need not to be replanted since they grow and bloom for several years while annuals grow and bloom for only one season. Mixing a few perennials with annuals ensures that you will always have blooms coming on.
3. Deadhead to encourage more blossoms.
Deadheading is simply snipping off the flower head after it wilts. This will make the plant produce more flowers. Just make sure that you don't discard the deadhead on the garden or mildew and other plant disease will attack your plants.
4. Know the good from the bad bugs.
Most garden insects do more good than harm. Butterflies, beetles and bees are known pollinators. They fertilize plants through unintentional transfer of pollen from one plant to another. 80% of flowering plants rely on insects for survival.
Sowbugs and dung beetles together with fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms are necessary to help in the decomposition of dead plant material, thus enriching the soil and making more nutrients available to growing plants.
Other insects like lacewings and dragonflies are natural predators of those insects that do the real damage, like aphis.
An occasional application of liquid fertilizer when plants are flowering will keep them blooming for longer.
Always prune any dead or damaged branches. Fuchsias are particularly prone to snapping when you brush against them. The broken branch can be potted up to give you a new plant, so it won't be wasted.
Sincerely,
-Paul O'Sullivan Editor, Hydroponics for Seniors
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