The best way to learn how to garden is to fail miserably at it. There I’ve said the un-thinkable, the un-sayable. I know you don’t like to fail. I know the entire education system has been working very, very hard to make you a success. And your entire world of self-esteem demands you succeed wildly (or at least to enthusiastic praise) as you garden. You want that magazine-picture-perfect garden and you’re entitled to it.
I don’t give a damn who you are, you want to learn how to garden, you’re going to screw up. And every real gardener can tell you story after story about how they killed this plant or that plant. I have probably killed more plants than you folks have ever tried to grow. It’s part of learning what works and what doesn’t. It’s part of becoming a gardener to push the limits. (And yeah, I’ve read Tony A’s comment about killing any given plant three times before I say it can’t be grown here)
Want to be a decorator – no problem. Plant some petunias and some rock hardy perennials. You’ll do fine.
Want to be a gardener then be prepared to find the limits of yourself and your climate. And be prepared to fail at it. Fail miserably as you kill experiment after experiment. Learning what really works, what really grows in that miserable stuff you call garden soil. What not only lives but blooms reliably in your garden, in your climate, in this specific year (and maybe, if you’re lucky, a few other years as well) Learn where you can cheat Mother Nature and where she’s going to pound you if you try.
It’s this failing, this maiming and killing of innocent plants and the refusal to give in that separates the gardeners from the wannabees. Wannabees go into shock when a plant dies. Gardeners look, sigh, (maybe curse) and replant in another location and try again.
The accumulation of experience is what makes a gardener. You don’t take a course, read a book and become a “gardener” (which is why I chuckle at those who take a Master Gardener course and proudly proclaim their new expert status). You don’t do it in one magic moment of reading, listening or watching – no matter how good the instructor or content.
You do it one plant at a time, one season at a time, one failure and one glorious success at a time. I’ve said this before (and I’m obviously going to say it again) you can either have one year of gardening experience repeated 30 times or you can have 30 years of gardening experience. One might make you a gardener, the other … well, the other only allows you to say you’ve been doing something outside for 30 years.
There are several things I’d be proud to say I’d done with my life. One of those would be if I really considered myself a good gardener and could write the word “gardener” on my tombstone (not that I’m ever going to need one of those but I’m just saying..) And while I’m getting there, I realize how very much I have to learn. How many more experiments I need to run, how many more plants I’m going to kill before I get it right. If indeed I ever do get it right. My final exam is being developed right now in my new garden and I might even get a glimmer of my success in anther 5 or 10 years. I’ll let you know.
Having said that, if you aren’t killing plants, you aren’t pushing the boundaries. And in my mind, if you aren’t pushing boundaries, failing within your garden, you aren’t moving forward to being a gardener.
The only way to avoid real failure is to constantly fail at the little stuff.
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