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It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!

So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?

What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?

Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)

Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?

Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?

What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?

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So happy to see this thread back!! 🤗
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Despite my initial disappointment about plants that didn't come back after winter or are struggling and unlikely to survive I'm back to dreaming about expanding my garden. In the past I planted a couple of native shrubs (nannyberry, red twig dogwood and a red leaf nine bark which has always struggled) along the property line below my walnut tree, and I've been looking at the creeping charlie filled grass and thought rather than try (again) to get grass growing I may as well just mulch and plant a bunch of shade loving border plants. I think gardening is an obsession LOL
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daughter -ahhh so you inherited this love of gardening. Great legacy. I love perennials. Some even survive where there is feet of ground frost. Delphiniums for example are very hardy.

cw -thank you -I had forgotten about dog tooth violets. Do you get dutchman's breeches there? Ontario wild flowers are great. I love trilliums too. What a wonderful day you had!!!

send -take care and pace yourself, Good for hubby to be weeding.

R is building garden beds out at the farm. He has plans for beets, carrots, spinach and I'm not sure what else. He doesn't think there is a good location for tomatoes - too many trees around so not enough sun.and there are a couple of resident cotton tails which could play havoc with everything. 🐇🐇
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Cwillie,
A very fun day!
It's even better when you can name the flowers and ducks!

One day can be worth a week in bed if I'm not careful.
This body cannot be commanded to work like I wanted to.

I am grateful for any times that I can spend outside.
It was a beautiful sun shiny day today, but a gout flare-up
kept me in bed.

And hubs...paying for chiropractic care recently. Has no one noticed this happens after stopping daily exercise in December? His new health insurance did not have AARP Silver Sneakers benefit, and he lost his favorite exercise coach back then.

However, he is pulling weeds in the spring garden and along the driveway. I had to stop him when he is pulling the neighbor's weeds too, like he always does. I don't know what they will do for weeding, but this Spring he is out as a free answer.
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Cwillie, Aww, that sounds like a perfect day . I'm happy for you
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Warm weather had everyone around me out sprucing up their yards and I was no exception, I've been out pulling up forget-me-nots (too much of a good thing) and tilling creeping charlie out of my natural garden. This afternoon I went for a walk along the nature trail and couldn't believe how many wildflowers are out already (dog tooth violets, hepatica, blood root, violets), plus I brought my binoculars and spotted several varieties of ducks, some white throated sparrows and a couple of early warblers. 🥰
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Thanks Golden, it’s always a work in progress. Living in the south means mostly year round gardening, but July-September is miserably hot and humid so we tend to hide indoors then. The winters never have the ground freeze though temperatures regularly go below freezing so many perennials just go dormant. I credit my mom for my love of gardening. The minister at her funeral said “she could name every flower” ha,ha something I told him right before the service so he’d sound like he really knew her!
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Golden, we already went on the cruise, now Ireland in September. We will probably take a weekend driving trip someplace around here sometime this summer, but I think my husband will loose his hair if I mention more trips. Lol

Anyways im looking forward to not going away this spring and concentrate on things that need to be done around the house and a little garden, just feeling a little like I miss my south spring trip.
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Daughter - your garden sounds just beautiful!!!

Daisy - maybe you need a trip south
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Daughter1930, thanks for that reminder, I just realized, the last 3 years we took a trip south around now, and came back to nicer weather. 2 years we drove to Tennessee and while driving I could see the trees blooming as we went father south. Last year we went to New Orleans, and it was a heat index of 105°. This spring we are not traveling south, I bet that's why I'm having a harder time than usual waiting to see the leaves come out.
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We went out of town for a week and came back an amazing change of color. Everything is so green and pretty. Grass greening up, trees leafing out, flowers blooming, everything just waking up. Snapdragons are in full bloom, even though they’re an annual, for some reason I’ve got some on their third year. Lillies about to bloom, irises as well. I put out the first of the vincas, but will be planting more as soon as I find the good colors. Spring is a lovely time
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The garden is also a very nice place to sit and relax.
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Aww, Alva that sounds so pretty and beautiful. First actually nice day today, for NY. Forecast for the week isn't great but better than last week, so I'll take it. Just being outside feels so good today!
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Gardening is sooooo therapeutic for me.
In the last surgery it hit just when the garden jumped into bloom.
Have twice been out and yesterday almost cut one of the drain tubes. The little jasmine fence was so overgrown I was grabbing handsfull at the top of it, about waist level, and just clipping through, when I noticed a rather more red and thicket stem. Yup. Had grabbed a handful and one of my drain tubes.
GOD, that would be SO like me, to have to go to the ER and explain how I cut my drain tube off with a rusty old shears.
Somebody up there likes me, because I saw it. Yes, don't say it. I am gonna be more careful.
The garden of course looks ESPECIALLY exquisite to me, the electric Kool-Aid acid kit colors of the cineraria all coming in, the lilac full of blooms, the brugmansia dripping with huge yellow blooms that smell so great in evening. The jamine in early bloom and everything full of new green.
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Weather, still stinks, had snow this morning,😠, but I am starting to get excited about plants and growing, and flowers, and dirt! I think we are going to have a little garden also. Won't be long now! 😀
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Snow is about a once a year occurrence for us and usually greeted with glee by children and bewilderment by drivers. My mom had a beautiful picture she took of her pansies blooming in the snow, they were unfazed by it, poking up through the snow in all colors. Of course the snow was a few inches and gone in a couple of days. You folks with feet of it and having to shovel—total respect!
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Daisy - we are getting there. Temps still drop below freezing at night but are above during the day and the longer days are good. The farmer's field has puddles again and not much snow. The highest high forecast for next week is 10C (50F).
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While I don't in my dotage miss "dealing with" the seasons and their changes, I do miss and think of the seasons. We have flowers all the year around, but somehow the wonder of those bulbs sticking up in the snows, those wonderful flowers that NEED the cold snaps to thrive, never leaves you.
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Snow is falling on my garden, whirling, dancing lightly down;
Snow is sparkling on the branches of the trees tall and brown.
But the flowers are not forgotten,
Spring will bring them all to light;
for the frost in dream has traced them
on my window last night.

It's been ridiculously difficult to find the words to this sweet little song, I've retained the melody since grade school. Yes it's snowing here again today but I don't really mind because I know it's only temporary.
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Spring is in the Air, 💐🌳🌻🪻, tulips are poking out there head, and I'm really looking forward to getting dirty again!

Last year we got rid of are pool, kept the deck, and turned it into, what I call a "She Deck" this year, I'm making a flower garden in front of it.
That is going to be fun and a learning experience.

Cwillie, I'm doing a happy dance with you. 💃🕺💃🕺, but probably looks more like the Ellen dance from Seinfeld.

Golden, how's your snow, and temperatures going? Still blustery here, but so much better, I hope things are getting better where you are.
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cw -enjoy. We have gone in the opposite direction. Snow and more snow!!!
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Somebody pulled the plug on Winter and we have had a very rapid transition to Spring - first all the birds: from swans to robins, killdeer, red winged blackbirds and even turkey vultures - then the first tentative flowers (winter aconite, followed by snowdrops and early crocus) - then thunderstorms and the rapid melt of almost all the snow (only a few of the deepest drifts left today). I know there will still be a few wintry incursions (it's only March after all) but I'm doing my happy dance 💃
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send - I love honeysuckle and hummingbirds.

daughter - sounds so lovely. Nothing like spring flowers

Here I was looking at the field outside which is still partly snow covered but getting muddy as well, and thinking that I will be glad to see the weeds that grow until the farmer works it. Green is good!
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Spring is on the way! I have hyacinths blooming along with tulips coming in, lots of pretty pinks, purples and whites. Daffodils are coming out along with snowdrops. I have a special smile for the snowdrops as my mom always had them, mine are from her yard and have moved with me many times. As for dragonflies, it has to get super hot before we see them, and they like buzzing over at unexpected moments, so I’m not their biggest fan
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Thank you ITTR.

Cwillie, There have been a few dragonflies over the years, but do not take up a permanent residence.

Last week, leveled out two bags of smooth rocks, jut under one inch in size.
Mixed colors, but many dark grey. Makes a difference, just small improvements.

There is rain today, a bit yesterday. Watering my little self-maintaining garden areas. We still have the big cape honeysuckle, thriving. And the same bouganvillia
struggling, then coming back, and looks a bit different daily. It cannot figure out the hot sunny days then rainy cold days. But it likes to live in the special place in the sun all day, plenty of air circulating around it.

Wanting to see more hummingbirds soon.
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Send, a water fountain with disturbed water, whether it is running, vibrating, swirling, whatever, will let dragon flies come around but, mosquitos will not lay their eggs in moving water.
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Also, besides mosquitos dangerous to my health with one bite,
I do not like grasshoppers.
Eww! Dh says they are somehow beneficial too.
Reading-I am not going to kill them!
Not liking the idea to kill anything.

Going to try the "Live and let live method" to life for about two weeks.
That includes my neighbors.

Have you heard of the theory/book: "Let them"?
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Hmmm, dragonflies need an aquatic habitat because their nymphs are aquatic. Mosquito larva are also aquatic, unfortunately they aren't as picky and can breed in any puddle of water that lasts long enough.
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Going to need therapy to figure this one out.

We want to attract pollinators.
We want to attract bugs that eat mosquitos.
We may want to attract bees (if we are not allergic).

Searching for plants to attract dragonflies (they eat mosquitos),
I ran across this:
These plants attract dragonflies, including ones that also attract the insects they prey on.


Attract more bugs?

I may need to go back and reread that.
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daughter - that sounds like one big plant and very strong. I never knew they could grow outside in the spring and summer. I may put one out on the balcony this spring and see what happens.

boj - good way to go!
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