I am butting my head against the one-body problem as well. I have a bigger garden than you and I find myself sometimes wishing for a smaller one. When you have less space it forces you to make choices that a larger space allows you to avoid--for a while. Making a "no new garden beds" rule I suppose is progress. Somehow I can't face the "which garden bed should I get rid of" decision. Not yet. But I'm working on upgrading my fitness regimen.
LIke books, our lives are made up of chapters. I used to be more than willing to do all the work necessary for my garden to merit its inclusion in a garden tour, to inspire some and at least not disappoint others.Its an unbelievable and very real amount of work. Gardening on a humbler scale or simply for my own pleasure is much kinder in some ways, but even that approach necessarily morphs and reshapes over time. Other chapters call out to be lived and written, asking to be invested in and explored, other interests that might lead one out of town during some of those most formative and demanding garden times of the year. And so we bow our heads and let some things fall to the side. Some plants suffer, others take unfair advantage. Groupings fall out of balance. Something gives, as it must. We mourn what was and no longer quite 'is.' We make our uneasy peace with not being able to do it all.
Thank you for exploring this phenomenon so thoughtfully and accessibly, Joseph.
Nice to bump into you over here in this neighborhood where so many Facebookers seem loath to wander...
At age 74 I cannot conceive of “not gardening”. I’ve been gardening since I was a kid, learning from my dad. And yes during my self-employed working days, Gardening time was much more limited but still was an essential part of life. Since retiring I’ve become a full- time gardener transforming the established 1/4 acre PNW garden into my own while creating a food forest and incorporating more native & low maintenance plants so I can keep gardening the rest of my days. I too find great joy in community volunteering in our local food bank garden Two mornings a week. It’s been a wonderful social outlet working with like-minded people who have become great friends. Looking back on life past - I only regret I didn’t spend more time gardening and less time working. Happy Gardening!
Joseph, excellent thought provoking introspective post, thank you. The last 6 years I have spent 2-3 days a week volunteering at a local Arboretum (has about 18 themed gardens), have a photo of a well known garden visitor and friend from Colorado (PK), he and I standing in front of a new Hesperaloe Rock Garden Feature that I constructed late summer 2024. I'm in process of moving as much choice plant materials as possible from my garden to the arboretum.
Beautifully said! As I retired last year, these thoughts really resonate with me. My little quarter-acre offers a large enough space and plenty of projects to keep me busy and happy. And I am simplifying the plantings, so I can keep tending them as long as possible.
"When Nichols wanted to grow a bunch of plants from seed, he handed the seeds to his gardener." Hahahaha! Your article is so so so great. I also fell down the rabbit hole of Beverly Nichols (who is very funny and a great writer despite being so annoyingly privileged) and, in my case, Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Monk House Garden. And then I, too, started to get very cranky, realizing that I was not ever going to be able to achieve that level of maintenance. Pulling weeds in my backyard alone does sometimes feel so pointless. It's just me and the squirrels. And they don't seem offended by crabgrass. Yours is the first gardening article I've read that addresses this one-body problem (and the loneliness of the solitary gardener) head-on and finds an elegant, ethical, feel-good solution. Anyway, so excited to have stumbled upon your writing. Can't wait to read more.
There are days I feel like a slave to my garden, which has numerous perennial beds along with 1000 square feet of vegetable garden spread across a couple of acres, plus three acres of woodland that benefits from a little maintenance each winter. I'm too cheap to hire help, so I put in the hours of labor so we can enjoy the tapestry of foliage and blooms, as well as healthy and tasty eating (which is the priority when coming up against the limits of time and energy). What's been lost is spending more time in the woods and the mountains, which is also important to my soul.
I keep telling my husband that I want a nice year-round greenhouse for my oldster gardening years. Some place to putter, many things at a level where I won't have to bend over as much and an area where I can grow some of the things I now haul in and out every spring and autumn, but without having to move them (no more up and down our very steep stairs!). I love the idea of volunteering somewhere to get the gardening "juices" flowing and I wish we had a conservatory here in Portland (maybe someday if the Portland Botanic Gardens becomes reality).
I love your “one-body problem” title and I admire your solution. I also have admired the Tom Sawyer approach I have occasionally encountered. For example, it made me laugh to read about a woman in this area that offered a fall class on putting your garden to bed for the winter… which she taught in her garden so she could offer plenty of hands-on experience. My husband used to joke about trying to adopt a few hard-working teenagers, but that’s probably an oxymoron and anyway I guess there are laws about that sort of thing. We probably will have to move to get away from my large garden problem, though I can’t imagine leaving it.
Lovely piece, Joseph. I have just had to make the decision to get a gardener in because of my failing health and strength. I want my small gardens (front and back) to be filled with flowers. I can no longer arrange that myself.
I’m particularly concerned that the front garden looks great because a lot of people walk past it on their way to the Park. A lot of front gardens have been given over to car parking in our road. Mine has a grove of banana trees!
Oh, how I identify with your lament! I am 75, and had to close my small orchid greenhouse last year when hauling mix and pots around became too much. Heartbreaking, but it wasn’t fair to let the plants suffer. With summer help in the form of a mow, blow and go guy, and a very part-time assist from a delightful young person who knows a rose bush from a dandelion, I manage my smallish Pacific Northwest yard. Here, in the ground zero of gardening delight, I totter on, determined not to let the vagaries of a checkered medical history force me to retire my weed-whacker. Fortunately, my walker seat aligns with the raised flower beds along my sloped yard. I gleefully wield my long-handled fork, vanquishing thistles and spurge with relish, and only occasionally getting my wheels stuck in the mud. But that’s a minor nuisance compared to the joy of having passers-by stop for Kodak moments, request cuttings and even seek advice. Long may I roll!
I am so glad that I found your writing (through Jared Barnes post)--I also am a solo gardener, now in my 70's, who 30 years ago realized that I would not be able to keep my garden up unless I changed my ways. My solution was to make firmer boundaries (I live in the woods, so my garden could have gotten way too big), plant some rhododendrons, and simplify the edges...but still, now, I can see my one body not being able to cope.
I admire your solutions--they aren't available to me, being too far from a city, but it's wonderful that you found them. Your 'small' garden is beautiful, and I look forward to seeing more of it.
Hi, Joseph. I enjoyed your interview with Margaret Roach, which led me here. I’m a fellow Substack garden writer — but my focus is on transforming turf yards with native plants. Wishing you all the best on your Substack journey, Heather
OMGosh do I ever relate to this. Having had physical issues for so long, and feeling lonely at home, I longed for teamwork, and have so much of it now at school and at both jobs. Volunteering and giving back is happening now at an orchard—one that meant so much to my childhood mentor. It makes me so happy to see someone giving back to the community. They’re lucky to have you, and it makes me excited to think of who you’ll be inspiring. Service means the world to me. Thank you for what you do both there and for the rest of us in the horticulture community too.
I am butting my head against the one-body problem as well. I have a bigger garden than you and I find myself sometimes wishing for a smaller one. When you have less space it forces you to make choices that a larger space allows you to avoid--for a while. Making a "no new garden beds" rule I suppose is progress. Somehow I can't face the "which garden bed should I get rid of" decision. Not yet. But I'm working on upgrading my fitness regimen.
LIke books, our lives are made up of chapters. I used to be more than willing to do all the work necessary for my garden to merit its inclusion in a garden tour, to inspire some and at least not disappoint others.Its an unbelievable and very real amount of work. Gardening on a humbler scale or simply for my own pleasure is much kinder in some ways, but even that approach necessarily morphs and reshapes over time. Other chapters call out to be lived and written, asking to be invested in and explored, other interests that might lead one out of town during some of those most formative and demanding garden times of the year. And so we bow our heads and let some things fall to the side. Some plants suffer, others take unfair advantage. Groupings fall out of balance. Something gives, as it must. We mourn what was and no longer quite 'is.' We make our uneasy peace with not being able to do it all.
Thank you for exploring this phenomenon so thoughtfully and accessibly, Joseph.
Nice to bump into you over here in this neighborhood where so many Facebookers seem loath to wander...
At age 74 I cannot conceive of “not gardening”. I’ve been gardening since I was a kid, learning from my dad. And yes during my self-employed working days, Gardening time was much more limited but still was an essential part of life. Since retiring I’ve become a full- time gardener transforming the established 1/4 acre PNW garden into my own while creating a food forest and incorporating more native & low maintenance plants so I can keep gardening the rest of my days. I too find great joy in community volunteering in our local food bank garden Two mornings a week. It’s been a wonderful social outlet working with like-minded people who have become great friends. Looking back on life past - I only regret I didn’t spend more time gardening and less time working. Happy Gardening!
Joseph, excellent thought provoking introspective post, thank you. The last 6 years I have spent 2-3 days a week volunteering at a local Arboretum (has about 18 themed gardens), have a photo of a well known garden visitor and friend from Colorado (PK), he and I standing in front of a new Hesperaloe Rock Garden Feature that I constructed late summer 2024. I'm in process of moving as much choice plant materials as possible from my garden to the arboretum.
Hello. May I ask were the arboretum is? I would love to visit it. I know who PK is from DBG!
Beautifully said! As I retired last year, these thoughts really resonate with me. My little quarter-acre offers a large enough space and plenty of projects to keep me busy and happy. And I am simplifying the plantings, so I can keep tending them as long as possible.
Great article and like-minded logic. Volunteer & enjoy, peoples!
"When Nichols wanted to grow a bunch of plants from seed, he handed the seeds to his gardener." Hahahaha! Your article is so so so great. I also fell down the rabbit hole of Beverly Nichols (who is very funny and a great writer despite being so annoyingly privileged) and, in my case, Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Monk House Garden. And then I, too, started to get very cranky, realizing that I was not ever going to be able to achieve that level of maintenance. Pulling weeds in my backyard alone does sometimes feel so pointless. It's just me and the squirrels. And they don't seem offended by crabgrass. Yours is the first gardening article I've read that addresses this one-body problem (and the loneliness of the solitary gardener) head-on and finds an elegant, ethical, feel-good solution. Anyway, so excited to have stumbled upon your writing. Can't wait to read more.
There are days I feel like a slave to my garden, which has numerous perennial beds along with 1000 square feet of vegetable garden spread across a couple of acres, plus three acres of woodland that benefits from a little maintenance each winter. I'm too cheap to hire help, so I put in the hours of labor so we can enjoy the tapestry of foliage and blooms, as well as healthy and tasty eating (which is the priority when coming up against the limits of time and energy). What's been lost is spending more time in the woods and the mountains, which is also important to my soul.
I keep telling my husband that I want a nice year-round greenhouse for my oldster gardening years. Some place to putter, many things at a level where I won't have to bend over as much and an area where I can grow some of the things I now haul in and out every spring and autumn, but without having to move them (no more up and down our very steep stairs!). I love the idea of volunteering somewhere to get the gardening "juices" flowing and I wish we had a conservatory here in Portland (maybe someday if the Portland Botanic Gardens becomes reality).
I love your “one-body problem” title and I admire your solution. I also have admired the Tom Sawyer approach I have occasionally encountered. For example, it made me laugh to read about a woman in this area that offered a fall class on putting your garden to bed for the winter… which she taught in her garden so she could offer plenty of hands-on experience. My husband used to joke about trying to adopt a few hard-working teenagers, but that’s probably an oxymoron and anyway I guess there are laws about that sort of thing. We probably will have to move to get away from my large garden problem, though I can’t imagine leaving it.
I feel this in my 68-year old knees. And back. And fingers. You are really on to something here, I love your idea of gardening with others.
Also, THOSE CLIVIA, woah! I wish they were more easily found. They would be a lot more popular, I think. I love mine.
Just need one of Hans’s seedling yellows now ha ha
Lovely piece, Joseph. I have just had to make the decision to get a gardener in because of my failing health and strength. I want my small gardens (front and back) to be filled with flowers. I can no longer arrange that myself.
I’m particularly concerned that the front garden looks great because a lot of people walk past it on their way to the Park. A lot of front gardens have been given over to car parking in our road. Mine has a grove of banana trees!
Oh, how I identify with your lament! I am 75, and had to close my small orchid greenhouse last year when hauling mix and pots around became too much. Heartbreaking, but it wasn’t fair to let the plants suffer. With summer help in the form of a mow, blow and go guy, and a very part-time assist from a delightful young person who knows a rose bush from a dandelion, I manage my smallish Pacific Northwest yard. Here, in the ground zero of gardening delight, I totter on, determined not to let the vagaries of a checkered medical history force me to retire my weed-whacker. Fortunately, my walker seat aligns with the raised flower beds along my sloped yard. I gleefully wield my long-handled fork, vanquishing thistles and spurge with relish, and only occasionally getting my wheels stuck in the mud. But that’s a minor nuisance compared to the joy of having passers-by stop for Kodak moments, request cuttings and even seek advice. Long may I roll!
I am so glad that I found your writing (through Jared Barnes post)--I also am a solo gardener, now in my 70's, who 30 years ago realized that I would not be able to keep my garden up unless I changed my ways. My solution was to make firmer boundaries (I live in the woods, so my garden could have gotten way too big), plant some rhododendrons, and simplify the edges...but still, now, I can see my one body not being able to cope.
I admire your solutions--they aren't available to me, being too far from a city, but it's wonderful that you found them. Your 'small' garden is beautiful, and I look forward to seeing more of it.
Hi, Joseph. I enjoyed your interview with Margaret Roach, which led me here. I’m a fellow Substack garden writer — but my focus is on transforming turf yards with native plants. Wishing you all the best on your Substack journey, Heather
OMGosh do I ever relate to this. Having had physical issues for so long, and feeling lonely at home, I longed for teamwork, and have so much of it now at school and at both jobs. Volunteering and giving back is happening now at an orchard—one that meant so much to my childhood mentor. It makes me so happy to see someone giving back to the community. They’re lucky to have you, and it makes me excited to think of who you’ll be inspiring. Service means the world to me. Thank you for what you do both there and for the rest of us in the horticulture community too.