On the 4th...

Today we celebrate America?s Independence from Great Britain with food, fireworks and fun. Usually this includes some sort of outdoor party where friends and family get together, swat mosquitoes and ingest large quantities of grilled meat and vegetables. It is always fun having people over but I know that I tend to wonder just what they think of my garden as they sit around balancing paper plates on their laps.

Enjoy

The holidays are always a great time to enjoy your garden and share it with your friends. No matter how small or large, gardens are a comfortable oasis in the urban tumult. I can guarantee that your apartment-dwelling friends will relish a few moments out among your trees, bushes and flowers. Even though we lived in apartments for years I forget just how confining they can be. We try to spruce them up with potted plants and herb pots but the extra space provided by a home really makes a difference.

Unfortunately, if you are anything like me, the thought of having guests in your garden starts you thinking about all the tasks you haven?t yet accomplished. There is that bare area under the trees that you keep talking about planting, the tree limbs that are blocking the path and the piles of leaves that have yet to be raked. So much to do in so little time!

Don?t let these thoughts get you down. The mere fact that your garden exists at all is enough. No matter what faults you may find with it, the sheer joy of being there, with your friends, should be enough. Friends won?t notice the bare spots or over grown bushes. In my garden they will be taken with the green leaves, yellow and orange hibiscus blossoms, purple roses and fragrant lantana. No matter what the state of the garden in my eyes, friends see a veritable Eden.

Working in your garden should be fun, not a chore. While there are certain tasks I don?t like very much, I find myself lost in the process once I get started. I don?t like spending large amounts of time watering my garden so I have automated much of this process. Even so, there are small spots that must be hand-watered. Since the area is small it doesn?t take me long to do it and I enjoy it much more. It becomes a short retreat from daily hassles instead of yet another obligation that must be met.

Paths and Pebbles

Unfortunately, there is one task that I haven?t found any way to make any easier. All the paths in my garden are made of pea gravel. It was originally Japanese-themed so this fit in with the overall plan. One major problem, though, is how to clean these paths without removing large amounts of the gravel. The back garden was heavily planted with trees and many of them are deciduous. If I neglect the path too long it seems to disappear under a carpet of leaf litter.

We have tried brooms and rakes, but finally settled on an electric leaf blower as the best, if not perfect solution. Even the blower lifts the small pebbles, though, and we end up with a large amount of them in our compost heap or city garden bins. We would like to purchase a chipper shredder to handle the leaves and tree prunings but I am afraid that the stones would quickly dull the cutters. I could really use this material for composting and mulching so I am still searching for a better solution.

Ihave thought about covering the paths with various types of organic mulch, instead of the gravel. Obviously, the mulch would need to be something that knits together well so that the leaf blower would not lift up too much of it. Shredded redwood bark seems a good choice and I am thinking of experimenting with it soon. Even though many southern California gardens use decomposed granite (often called just, DG) for their paths, it is too easily tracked into the house and doesn?t quite look right in my non-desert landscape. It also has the same issue of damaging a chipper/shredder should it be raked up with the leaves. I suppose I could use chipped tree prunings as path covering but I am afraid the seeds from the trees would merely volunteer everywhere. The only path covering I have totally written off is grass. It requires too much maintenance and too much water here in my near-desert setting.

If any of you have ideas as to what I might use, please pass them on. You can send them directly to the AGN Mailing agn@onelist.com by simply replying to this message. Let me know what works best in your garden.

Until next week...

Keep digging...

Douglas

Douglas E. Welch is a freelance writer and comptuer consultant based in Van Nuys, California.
He can be reached at douglas@welchwrite.com or via his web pages at www.welchwrite.com.