Gardening is billed as a great stress reliever, and it is. Usually, I think, those promoting gardening as a mental health activity recognize the soil, plants, birds, bugs, and light movement of weeding and deadheading as the “active ingredients” in gardening.
This summer I have needed much more than normal gardening to keep my head on straight. It is 90% work stress, but throw in a little mid-life hormonal havoc and a puppy and I’m at my breaking point. Heavier medicine is needed.
So I’ve got two heavy duty projects going.
The first is FINALLY connecting the house with the garden in back. The high deck with white railing acted like a tall fence separating the two, and sitting out there never felt right.
So I tore it off.
But you can’t have a deck with a four foot drop off the front.
Instead of a railing I’m building stepped planting boxes that drop 10 inches each step. As usually all the lumber is cut by hand, and the sawing is great for clearing the head.
Now I have a 4x4x8 foot box in need of filling. That’s a lot of topsoil to buy. Instead I am starting by throwing all of my brush, weed, and compost piles in there and stomping it down. That’s filled it about half way.
Where to get the rest? That is project number two.
This spring I experimented with native plants in the median strip between the street and sidewalk. The mountain mint, yarrow, and black eyed susans did well and survived the drought. There is A LOT of sod in that median, and I’m going to pull it all up.
The plants in the rest of the median, away from the electric pole and sign post, need to be short to keep the city from citing me. I think the black eyed susans and yarrow should work, and I’ll try some fleabane, violets, and grasses too.
It going to take me a few weeks to get the sod up and trundled into the back and heaved (up side down) into the planting box.
It’s a good thing. The stress isn’t going to let up, so neither can the extreme gardening.
A Gardener's Lot 