There Are No Old Gardeners

"There are many tired gardeners but I've seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next year's will be better. It is easy to age when there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for; gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up."~~Allan Armitage

 I love this quote because I find I think about getting older all the time with my garden. I think a lot about planting a more 'maintenance free' garden, because, you know, I'm getting older.  I feel this way mostly in the fall, at the end of the season, when I'm tired and ready to stop thinking about the garden. But it always amazes me how in the spring, it all comes back and you're refreshed and ready to go, already thinking about what new plantings you can make. I hope I'll always be a 'young gardener.' I hope I'll always think next year's garden will be even better. 

I had to work this weekend, but yesterday was  beautiful and I did get outside for a few hours. I have an akebia vine on my fence that would take over the world if I let it, so I spent a good amount of time cutting that back out of trees and plants. It's nice to plant vines when you have a fence, but they have a way of getting into everything.  I've been digging up a few clumps of purple coneflower and phlox, and transplanting them around the garden. I've made the first spray of the peonies with a fungicide, and need to do another spray in 2 weeks. I don't usually like to spray things, but my peonies are pretty important to me, and they seem vulnerable to fungal problems.  And there's always weeding, of course... 

Eileen and Prudy, Plant Weekend 2014

I leave on Thursday for Pennsylvania for our annual plant buying weekend, so I'm getting  excited for that.  Starting to think about pots and plant combinations!  And to make our spring even more exciting, we've started taking down the wallpaper in our kitchen...major kitchen renewal begun!