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Gardeners often complain about their local climate, no matter where they live.Every region presents unique gardening challenges, from harsh winters to scorching heat.The author suggests gardeners should focus on their successes rather than their failures.When receiving a compliment on your garden, simply say “thank you” instead of pointing out flaws.
Is there anyone who doesn’t hate the climate where they garden?
One of the great benefits of the way I make a daily living is that I get to travel and talk with … a lot of gardeners. Over the years, I’ve lectured to academic, nursery/landscape industry, and home gardener groups in most US states and a handful of foreign countries. And at some point during most of those talks, I have made it a habit to ask the audience the following question, “Who thinks (insert lecture’s location) has the most challenging gardening climate on the planet?”
To date, I’ve never had someone stand up and say, “Just hold on there, pardner. You tryin’ to insinuate something about our weather? I love trying to grow rhododendrons in Wyoming …”
Nope. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has anything nice to say about the climate or the weather where they do their gardening. And as gardeners, it seems the only thing we love more than beating up on our own local gardening weather, is beating up on the meteorological challenges of friends who garden in different parts of the continent. When I was finishing grad school in Illinois, I announced to colleagues that I had accepted a faculty position at the University of Maine teaching woody landscape plants. The response was, “which one?” (Cue the Rodney Dangerfield rim shot from the band!)
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Northeast. When all was said and done, I am fairly confident that in my new northern New England landscape, with -30 temperatures, annual snowfall of around 120 inches, and a soil consisting of modeling clay accented with glacial boulders, the available plant pallet was much larger than it was in central Illinois. Score one for slightly acidic soils…
Don’t get me wrong. Getting through a Maine winter, gardener or not, isn’t for the faint of heart. Dealing with mud season — where the 50-inch-deep frost in the ground thaws from the top and bottom at the same time, leaving you with a suspended layer of Jell-O pudding for soil for a month or so — is no treat. But neither are the hurricanes of coastal Carolina, inland spring floods of the Mississippi delta, scorching dry heat of the desert southwest or the insanity of Denver’s 30-below Tuesday followed by a back-yard barbecue (in shorts!) on Wednesday.
You know those National Geographic film clips of bison standing in Yellowstone National Park in January, frozen steam rising from their hide and foot-long icicles hanging from their snow-covered faces? Yeah … you’ve got nothing to complain about. Wyoming gardeners have it tough!
But I think we’ve got this whole complaining thing backward. I know as gardeners we’re prone to the walk-n-whine when garden friends come for a visit. “I planted so-and-so there but the deer ate it, and then I planted something-or-other over here but it died of southern blight, etc.” The required mind shift, I think, is to leave behind what didn’t work and focus on what did, or at least what you learned.
Gardening is hard work. To do it well takes planning, experimentation, perseverance, and an appreciation for delayed gratification. If instant success is what you crave, better to paint the living room or hang new curtains. Gardens aren’t overnight affairs.
So here’s the good doctor’s prescription for the new year:
Give yourself credit for your garden successes
Take credit where credit is due. Go find a full length mirror and stand in front of it. Now repeat after me.
“I am a valuable member of the human race and I have had meaningful successes in my garden.” Now repeat that five times in a row every morning and every evening. Trust me. In as little as 10 or 15 years, you’ll start to believe it. And that’s the easy part. The hard part will be reciting that affirmation to your garden visitors. We might have to employ AI for that.
Your garden failures and successes alike are valuable learning experiences for you as a gardener. They also generate valuable knowledge to be shared with friends. “I did that and it worked the way I wanted and here’s why I think it worked” is no more or less valuable than “I tried that a few times but I think such-and-such caused it to fail. Here’s what I’m going to try next, and why I think it will work.” Take credit in living success as well as in the knowledge gained when something doesn’t quite work out.
Say ‘thank you’ when someone compliments your garden
When a visitor complements you on some bit of success in your garden, simply say “thank you” without embellishment. My darling wife and several of her siblings have a crazy pattern surrounding special-occasion gift giving. After spending months obsessing about finding the absolute most perfect gift anyone could ever bestow upon a friend or loved one, and just as soon as the recipient flashes that first sign of knowing what it is, the gift giver immediately starts to backpedal.
“I have the receipt so you can return it if you hate it.” “It’s not really what I was looking for so if you don’t like it …”
When someone observes, “I love the way your placed that cobalt blue container so it repeats the color of the …” Just smile and say thank you. You do not need to tell them that you leveled the container with one of your kid’s Hotwheels cars wedged under a broken brick. Every gardener knows there’s an under-the-carpet part of the garden. It’s a given. Just thank them for their compliment and know they fully understand. You might need to practice this one in front of that mirror. Maybe some role playing for good measure.
Embrace the weather in your area
Embrace your successes and failures in dealing with local weather challenges. You’re either a zone pusher or not. If you play it safe with plant selection and placement, that’s not the wimp’s way out. That’s your choice to prioritize more dependable success over bragging rights for coaxing a half dead super-choice plant through the vagaries of a yo-yo bit of winter. If you relish the zone pusher ethos, then proudly celebrate the successes, no matter what they are.
Especially if you garden in Wyoming.
Paul Cappiello is the executive director at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, 6220 Old Lagrange Road, yewdellgardens.org.
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