Herban Sprawl

I just read an interesting little book called The Gin & Tonic Gardener – Confessions of a Reformed Compulsive Gardener by Janice Wells. I saw the title online when I was hunting for something neat to report on last month for the Herb Society book sharing session. My local independent bookseller kindly ordered me a copy and yesterday, when I retrieved it, I decided to be lazy, hang out on the porch with Barney and a cup of green tea, and look it over. Yuh. I read it. Cover to cover.

For starters, Ms. Wells, a “re-singled” woman with two daughters just out of college, was renovating a yard, and she wrote of her ideas, experiments and the wisdom she’s acquired from all her gardening family. After some vacillating, she decided to move, rented her house and bought another. Then that yard needed some massive fixing up.

I think what I appreciated the most was the fact that she is not the picture-perfect Southern Living sort of gardener. She’s strictly do-it-yourself. She doesn’t hire a design team and she doesn’t spend a fortune. She puts in plants that please her and ones that will thrive with very little interference. To be sure, she’s careful about watering, but she also falls down on that job! I love her.

My own garden sounds a lot like hers, but mine needs her creative eye for hardscaping. That’s the part she describes as liking best and that’s the part where I completely lack any imagination. You’d think, being an architecture nut, and one who goes weak in the knees over wrought iron (Aha! Maybe that’s why my knees are going…too much wrought iron action?), that I’d have all kinds of cute things going on back there. But it’s hard to build on that hill. So I’m excused. Or not. Ms. Wells would have dreamed up some kind of way of adding interest to an otherwise daunting hill.

At any rate, she is a woman after my own heart. Unlike Anna who grew the most fabulous hybrid tea roses, I am way too sorry for that. My roses are the old-fashioned ones known in the vernacular as Apothecary’s Roses. They go where they like. I whacked mine back mercilessly this spring, and it has been to their benefit. Ms. Wells likes to prune. I don’t. When I do it, I’m so scared I’m going to kill the plant. I left it to Clarice to whack back my dying petunias before we went to Illinois. They are looking quite buff, but beginning to get their second wind in the bosomy and showy department. He wielded the scissors with the kind of determination I reserve for polishing silver.

But the thing we have in common is the mutual dislike of grass. Our lawn is a joke. We’ve been here over 20 years and have yet to “weed and feed” it. It gets mowed. Any water it gets is because I am running a sprinkler for the plants in the beds under the dogwoods. I will admit to spending a small fortune on a Neuton mower a couple of years ago, but it isn’t like I love my lawn.

The Neuton is the best answer to my biggest summertime headache since living in a freestanding house. Big Kitty doesn’t like to mow, therefore the grass at a rented house we had got up to his knees. He had to go buy a hay whacker! Every summer we had the same fights. “The grass needs to be mowed.” I just went out there, it isn’t high enough.” “It is, too.” “It’s only up to my ankles.” “Yeah, well you have long legs and it’s up to my knees, dammit!”

And then the Goddess sent me Mr. Johnson. He came faithfully, even when we were away, and he was the kindest man I’ve ever met. He taught me a lot about gardening, but more important, he encouraged me. After his passing, Lawn Lady presided for a couple of years, but when she got unreliable, I knew I had to do something. I didn’t want to fool with a lawn mower because I hate little engines. They are noisy and they are hard to start, etc. etc. I’d seen the ads for the Neuton in Fine Gardening, so I investigated. I read the reviews and then I ordered one with all the toys.

For three years I have been mowing. No longer dependent on Big Kitty and a capricious Briggs & Stratton, I can pop out there and mow whenever I want because the mower isn’t loud and disruptive. But I didn’t like the trimmer attachment, and I needed a trimmer.

The Goddess loves me. I spied a Black and Decker battery powered trimmer at Lowe’s. Ever mindful of keeping the Lowe’s stock at a healthy height, I forked over $100 for one. It came with two batteries and the deal that week was a third battery free. The first spool of fish line wouldn’t cut itself, but the new one is doing well. The on/off button sticks, but I’m patient. I fiddle with it until it undoes itself. I am hell on wheels with that thing! It’s light and I can trim up a storm. It helps that my niece-to-be works for Black and Decker, so I felt doubly noble in buying yet another power tool that does not require gasoline.

I’d happily do away with all the grass, but this isn’t the yard of my dreams, so I’m holding back. I have visions of paths that meander through beds that are all crammed with all manner of tree, shrub, and perennial. But I’m also thinking real hard about Janice Wells’ theory that you need to be able to live in and enjoy your garden.

You need to be able to climb into your hammock with a gin and tonic and the latest Dave Robicheaux or V.I. Warchawski. And when it comes to hammocks, she saved me a ton of research. The freestanding ones can be moved so you keep the sun behind you, which makes it easier to read and nap! Plus, a regulation bocce court has no grass. You just have to have little benches and places to set the jelly glass of Dago red! I think I’m really a gin & tonic gardener, after all!