Is Gardening Only for the Privileged?

The privilege of a gardener became abundantly clear as I was looking through library books about landscape design and saw no homes or yards that I (who easily qualifies as a privileged white woman) could relate to. They were all either sweeping estates or fancy little urban courtyards.

I'm obsessed with xeriscaping, native plants and perennial gardening, but the only reason why I could afford replacing the front yard with what felt like a million plants was because we live in a gentrified town and refinanced our home, which increased a sizable amount in value over just five years. And that situation is definitely a privilege. I knew I couldn't keep ignoring the privilege of a gardener anymore when, on one of my favorite gardening podcasts, a caller actually uttered the words "the help". As similar situations and conversations continue to arise, I keep returning to one difficult question: is gardening only for the privileged?

I'm aware that I embody "privilege." And that it took me until I was 30 years old to come to terms with the idea that gardening has largely been reserved for the rich and the white illustrates that fact. Even with my very modest income and lifestyle, I am the epitome of white privilege. And as I become more entrenched in my passion for plants, gardening and sustainable garden design, I realize more and more that gardening really seems to be a pastime for only the privileged. This is a real problem because in order to better the world, the ability to better your own little piece of it should be available to everyone.

My first real attempt at CO gardening - our rental in 2010. I got the dirt from Big Lots and plants from a Native plant sale.

No matter how "low-maintenance" it is, gardening costs a lot of time, money and effort. And it usually requires the ownership of a home. Not to state the obvious, but that makes it a passion that only people with extra time and money can pursue. I work a salaried job and so does my husband. So every once in a while we have room in our budget and days to improve the tiny piece of the earth that we call our own. And still, time and money are large constraining factors on all I'd like to do.

Gardening should never be an experience reserved for the privileged. Getting your hands dirty and caring for the land offers immense health and emotional benefits. Replacing lawns and "dead zones" with easy-care plants benefits the local ecosystem in huge ways. Actively taking part in the care of a garden greatly impacts young minds.

That's why community gardens, pop-up parks, accessible ecological education, plant and seed swaps and a place for gardening in early-childhood (and higher) education are so incredibly important.
Support your local community gardens, garden education programs and sustainability programs now by volunteering time and/or money if you have it, and offering your vocal support or vote if you don't.

Gardening has been a passion of the privileged for a long time, but it doesn't have to stay that way. This spring and summer, I plan on volunteering my time to our beautiful community garden in Fort Collins, The Gardens on Spring Creek. I'd love to learn more about how I can join in the effort to make gardening, gardens and natural spaces accessible to everyone, and our community gardens seems like a great place to start.

Landscape Lessons Learned: I made the mistakes so you don't have to!

I jumped into my first DIY landscape project 5 years ago when we moved into a new house and had a nearly "blank-slate" yard to work with. While I still love our backyard and the many growing things that live there, I've learned a lot from the many design mistakes I made on that first project.

When I look at my backyard landscape, I'm reminded that every good gardener learns from their own experience, as well as the experience of other gardeners. So, it only makes sense for me to pass my lessons on to you. If you're planning on jumping into a DIY landscape or garden project, take a look at my List of Landscape Lessons Learned (alliteration is so tempting, forgive me), so you don't make the same mistakes that I did.

And then let me know what mistakes you make so that I learn from you. It's the circle of gardeners' life, you see.

1. Incorporate pre-existing shrubs and flowers into your design (if you're leaving them there). I didn't want to dig up the entire hedge of old lilacs along the back fence, so I left most of them and then seemed to forget all about them as I planted the rest of the area with Xeric, low-maintenance perennials. If I were to do it again, I'd work harder to integrate their tall structure and early-spring bloom into the overall design.

Pre-existing shrubs in background with a couple tall grasses in between. 

2. Create a "rhythm" or site line for the eye. I made the common noob mistake of getting super excited about all of the plant options and then getting lost in the variety. There is no real site line for the eye in my landscape. Your eye will be drawn to the purple flowers of the Salvia when it's in bloom, but they do not create any real rhythm in the garden. The garden looks like what it is -- just a bunch of plants that I wanted to try. In terms of a "rhythm", my garden just makes noise. No matter how small, every grouping of plants should have some sort of "rhythm". Whether it's grand and sweeping, slow and quiet, or energetically staccato, you can create a rhythm with texture, form and color.

3. Utilize groupings of plants to create the rhythm and structure of your garden. This is where I feel like I really went wrong. I did not adequately utilize groups of plants in my landscape. Instead, I put one type here and one type there, and spread them around the garden with other plants that I thought might look nice next to them.  The two tall grasses planted at the back of the garden are perfect examples. They'd make a much bigger impact if I had planted in groups of three, for instance. Of course, a few of the original perennials have died and been replaced, so the garden has morphed over time, but it still lacks any real continuity.

4. Consider bloom time and plant accordingly. The rhythm of your garden is created in part by the color of the flowers' blooms. If there's a time in the season where none of your flowers are blooming, then your garden will feel somber and silent at that time. You can create an all-season show by grouping plants together with similar bloom times and making sure you have groups of flowers that will be blooming at all times. When I see pictures of my garden in late summer, I realize that I made a huge mistake -- I created a garden that is lush and colorful for only part of the season, not all of it. In late summer, only the sunflowers and hollyhocks prevail, which makes for an unbalanced appearance in our backyard.

The garden in late summer

5. Forget the weed barrier and small river rock. Use some form of mulch (including gravel or rock for truly Xeric plants) and weed-resistant groundcover instead. Focus on using larger rocks throughout the landscape rather than spreading small river rock all the way through it. The weed barrier and small river rock in our backyard have both proven to be a huge pain in the ass. It took me forever to get the landscape planted because I had to cut through the weed barrier and move rocks every time I wanted to plant a plant. Five years later, the weed barrier pokes up in weird places and I'm always trying to pull the rocks away from a plant's new growth. I really wish I would have just gone without both.

Exception: If you're doing a manicured and structured landscape that focuses on the space between plants as much as it does the plants, then use a weed barrier. I like the look of a "meadow" planting, or one where all of the plants slowly start growing into each other and mingling in unexpected ways, so I like to allow plants to go where they want.

Now, as I jump into my next major landscape project, I'm trying to keep all of these lessons in mind, but I find myself making similar mistakes, even in the planning stages. I have a pretty good variety of plants waiting to be planted, and I worry it will look a little disjointed once it's all growing, but we'll just have to wait and see! I do feel confident that it will be an improvement on the backyard, even if a small one. I'm so excited to see how it turns out. Of course, I'll have to wait a few years to really see this garden in all its full-grown glory.

Stay tuned; we start planting our next big Xeriscape project tomorrow! Follow me on Instagram @mlefrances520 to see updates.

10 Ways to Garden on a Budget

Gardening is expensive. I've been gardening on a tight budget from the get-go. This is a list of ways of how I do it. These are in no particular order, but I do consider #10 to be the most important rule for any kind of gardening.

Note: My low-budget approach is based on the concept that low-maintenance = less money. Although no garden is truly "low-maintenance," and many gardeners take joy in the maintenance of a garden, you do spend much less money and effort on water, fertilizer, soil amendments and replacement plants when you choose your plants correctly.

1. Use mildly self-sowing perennials. Some gardeners turn up their noses at self-sowing plants because they spread willy-nilly around the garden and can create a wild, un-planned look. Aggressive self-sowers are known to encroach upon more well-behaved perennials, so steer clear of those. Mild to moderate self-sowing plants give you the most bang for your buck over the years, offering transplanting options for other areas and filling in empty spaces in the garden. If you prefer a more manicured, well-managed look, stay away from self-sowing plants. If you love the wild, more "natural" look like I do, and you have space that needs to be filled in over the years, go crazy.
There are a ton of self-sowing perennials, but these are what I have enjoyed in my garden:

Hollyhocks in  July 2012. They have now self-sowed into this whole corner and side. Blanket flower, Salvia and Sundrops (all also self-sowing) to the right behind it. 

Kenzie and I picking some Blanket flowers (July 2013). They are short-lived but self-sow if you allow some seed heads to remain on the plant

Kenzie checking out a wild sunflower (July 2013). Birds love them and so do I. They have self-sowed throughout the yard. You can also collect the seeds and sow them where you want them, or share with friends. Seedlings are easy to pull up if you don't want them in a certain area

One small Salvia plant turned into three side-by-side plants

2. DIY. Do the design and (hard!) work yourself. Although working with a professional landscape designer and landscape company is guaranteed to deliver some great results, it can get expensive. If you want a gorgeous yard but don't have the money to pay a designer, do it yourself. Keep in mind that this approach does cost you in time and effort, but to me, that makes the results even more glorious. Always use a professional for big projects, especially those that include lighting, irrigation and major hardscaping (boulders, etc).

Our DIY design in 2011

3. Research. The library and Google are your friends. You'll save a ton of money simply by googling plants and gardening ideas that you're interested in, and figuring out how or if it'll work in your garden. I also like to get books from the library that will broaden my gardening horizons.
These are two books that I now own after first checking them out from the library. They are both written by a Fort Collins-based landscape designer who I've come to love:

4. Only buy plants from local nurseries who know the area and the best plants for it. Learn from my mistakes. Don't buy plants (including veggies) from the big box store. Chances are those plants have traveled quite a ways and are on their last leg by the time you get them in the ground. Avoid spending money on replacement plants by buying high-quality plants in the first place. Plus, you support the local community by steering clear of nationally corporate stores!

5. Use groundcovers. Like self-sowers, groundcovers can lend color and texture to large areas over time, saving you money on compact growers.

Reiter Thyme groundcover is used as a lawn alternative here.

6. Get your containers from thrift stores. Containers are sooo stinkin' expensive! We got nearly all of our containers from a thrift store, as a gift or with a gift card. This approach did give our pots and plants a kind of eclectic look, but that matches our style sensibility and personalities pretty well. If you like a more uniformed style, look for containers in the same color scheme and complementing patterns.

The large containers on the floor (the most expensive) were all bought with gift cards. 

7. Grow from seed. If you have a large space to cover, consider planting a wildflower or prairie grass area from seed. A little goes a long way, and it's way cheaper to buy a packet of seeds than a truck load of plants. This approach will cost time up front because of the soil amending, watering and weed-pulling maintenance that it takes to get things going, but it'll save you a ton of money in the long run.

8. Do a little at a time. Cultivation of any kind takes time. Gardening is all about learning, and you simply can't take any short cuts when you're acquiring knowledge from experience. I split my projects into spring and fall (and years) so that I don't have to spend a bunch of money and effort at the same time. And I always have plans for my gardening future.

2011

2014

9. Ask for gift cards as presents. My birthday is in May, so I almost always ask for a gift card to the local nursery or Xeric mail-order website (High Country Gardens) for my birthday. I always have more plants, soil and other gardening essentials that I want to buy, so help from family goes a long way.

10. And for my golden rule of perennial gardening: Always choose plants that do well in your climate and soil. You're just throwing your money away if you choose plants purely on looks. I've learned from research and experience that native perennials are great, but only if they are well-suited for your particular area. For instance, Columbines are native to Colorado (and the state flower!), but I rarely use them because they are native to creek-side woodland areas and require too much water and loamy soil, which I don't have. I chose a low-water hybrid Columbine for my shady front bed, and it still only does well when we get a lot of rain or I remember to water it often.

Don't limit yourself to natives, but do limit yourself to plants that have their origin in a similar climate and soil. For instance, plants from the highlands of Turkey and other Middle East locations have been proven to do well in the Front Range of Colorado because they have similar soils and climates. Take the time to research (see #3) and get to know your garden's microclimate, and you shall be rewarded.

I'm always looking to get more bang for my buck, so let me know what has proven to be a good penny-pinching tactic for you!

Meditations on Growth and Change

Almost three years. THREE years! Has gone by since I last posted on this blog. I can't believe the last time I sat down to write a blog post, we were new homeowners,  I hadn't yet tacked on a new last name, and Scout was still just a pup. I only had one niece back then; now I have two nieces, a nephew and my friend's baby girl, who I consider a niece, as well. Patrick hadn't even thought about going back to school (he's in grad school now) and I was luxuriating in all of the possibilities that come with a salaried job with benefits.

We got married! May 26, 2012

I think about this blog so much that I can't fully understand why I'd decided to let it go. I do know that I had some worries about keeping a gardening/environmental blog. Worry of being just another writer out there drowning in the vast blog world, worry of not writing anything that anyone other than myself cares about, and worry about offending and/or angering those who do not agree with my opinions and thoughts on sustainable agriculture and environmentalism. I could go so much further into the multitude of reasons for why, and the reasons for having those reasons, but that's not what I want to do for my first post back. No. I want this blog to be a celebration of  growth, change and nourishment. I want to celebrate cultivation in all its senses.

And right now, I want to celebrate Spring! And ya'll know I do what I want. So here goes.

 Scout had a great winter! She loves the snow.

It was a harsh winter for my family and friends who reside in the arctic-blasted Midwest. In Fort Collins, we had your average Colorado winter with a few frigid days, some snowy days and many sunny, mild days. Patrick's birthday (Feb 2nd) was a classic Colorado bluebird day, which is a nice mixture of sun and snow.

The b-day boy fresh from an epic powder weekend in Winter Park

No matter how easy the winter has been, the first sprouts of Spring are a welcome sight. We started having beautiful spring-time weather in mid-March this year. As soon as it's warm enough, I post up on the deck during the weekend, bust out my garden notebook, along with a few gardening catalogs for brain fodder, and start my garden planning.

I can always count on having big dreams for my little garden. This year is no different. This year, I'm determined to extend the gardening season as well as push the space limitations on my two 8x4 garden beds. I'm also experimenting in companion planting this year. That means I did some research on what plants help each other grow, what flowers keep pests away and which plants prefer not to live in close quarters with each other.  More on all of this later. I'm still in my spring-dreaming phase, so give me some time to soak it in, along with the sun and 70-degree weather.

This is what's been going on since the first signs of spring in March:

Weeds are the 1st to spring to life in garden area

Xeric landscaping begins to show signs of life

Mid-march: Patrick and I both get to work outside

 In a rare burst of DIY confidence, I decided to collect TP rolls and use them as seed pods this year. I cut the rolls in half, cut the bottoms in four places and folded them in to create the bottom of the pot, then taped it to stay closed. They are re-used, bio-degradable and you can just plant them with the seeds. I'm not sure if I'd do it again for five reasons:
1. They got a little moldy around the sides since the cardboard never really dried out.
2. They sat at wonky angles since the bottoms weren't perfectly flat.
3. Some rolls came apart at the seams, making open sides on some of the seed pods.
4. The tape didn't stay taped and some bottoms came apart.
5. It was a pain in the butt.
Despite all of these little issues, I still managed to grow healthy veggies.

Oh, and Yoda. He's my designated plant guardian this year. A good job he has done.

Still Mid-March: Early seed starting for an extended growing season

Late March: time to transplant to bigger pots it is

After transplanting in late March, the veggies are looking promising under their grow lamp

April 20th: Veggies need to be planted or transplanted soon

April 20th: The yard is the greenest it likely will ever be this year

Grow and change. That's what we do. That's what happens in this ever-expanding universe. Try to stop it and crushed you will be. I enjoy observing the change and striving to nurture it. That way, I can be a small part of its healthy growth, deep roots and flourishing life.