Wow, I'm a Gardener

I walked around Cypress Garden Nursery today, drunk on beauty and fragrance.  I feasted my eyes on a froth of flowers and realized the Cypress Garden had simply transferred all their knowledge about growing healthy vibrant plants to me.  I have at last replicated their success, at least a much smaller version, and I am immensely grateful to them for that.

This year, my garden, which is largely a container garden, has sprung from a sad, ratty ugliness born of serious neglect to become the most abundant garden I've ever grown before.  What's my secret?  First of all, I had to pay attention to it more often.  Then, heavy pruning in January, regular feeding with an organic fertilizer and regular watering -- if rain wasn't doing the job -- has turned the tide.  (I have settled on E.B. White organic fertilizer, and I don't get paid to say so.)  My plants are growing abundantly and are producing profuse amounts of flowers.  A couple of plants are very challenging, and I still I need to figure them out, but the majority are dancing on their stems in apparent happiness.  I like to think so anyway.

Pruning is the one area that takes time to master, and I have asked a lot of questions.  If injudicious cuts are made, you can lose a plant, but if you don't prune out dead wood at the beginning of the growing season, the plant is stuck with it and vitality is lost.  Roses, the most vulnerable plants to pests and horrible afflictions, need pruning in January and then constant attention to battle the waves of predators that materialize from nowhere.  So, I remembered that and accomplished my pruning when the yard was still cold and dreary.  Now the roses are popping out all over the plants like nobody's business.

It is said that life happens in seasons not in 30-minute segments, so I am in this for the long haul now.  Sticking with the plants as they go through their life cycle is proving to me that keeping my eyes on the prize (lots of flowers throughout the growing season) takes perseverance and a long-term focus, but wow is it worth it.  If my flowers could sing, I'd hear quite a chorus.