Advice from the Small Town Gardener

A glimpse of my refuge behind the peonies and trellis

TODAY'S ADVICE: It is not enough to have a well manicured lawn. It is not enough to have a beautiful perennial border and foundation plants of an appropriate scale. It is not even enough to grow delicious vegetables. In order to have a wonderful garden you have to make sure you have a refuge.

That means you can't spend all of your time outside working(even though I have a few friends who will have a hard time with this concept.) You have to have a place where you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work. You need a refuge. It can be quite simple, a lawn chair in the shade of a tree, a place tucked out beyond the perennial border, a little spot sloping down from the street. If you want to get fancy, you could put a seat under an arbor. But you do need to have a place to sit. To paraphrase Thoreau, one chair for solitude, two for company, three for society. You decide how many people you want to allow in your refuge.

It's also important to have a nice view, preferably of a part of your garden that almost always looks good, so that you won't be distracted and get up and pull weeds. I think a little shelter from the harsh summer sun is a good idea, and a nice smelling plant close by can make it feel like heaven. Bring out a cup of coffee or pot of tea and a good book, and just relax. See how nice it is.

I like my area of refuge to be a movable feast, so I have a portable reclining chair (purchased at Job Lot) that I can set up in various places in the yard. When I used to visit my dad out in western Nebraska, we would sit in plastic lawn chairs on the concrete patio under the carport roof and look out at the barn in the late afternoon. Those were some of my favorite times. Now in the evening, an Adirondack chair under the grape arbor on the patio is my preferred place to sit with a cocktail. I look out at my water feature, an English galvanized washtub with a waterlily in it and potted plants around it.  Pretty simple. So my advice is this; it really isn't that difficult or expensive, but you will receive a lot of value from a refuge.