University Place

Gardening as We Age

– Morning, everyone.

– Audience: Good morning.

– My name is Mark Dwyer. Many of you perhaps know me from my previous career at Rotary Botanical Gardens in Janesville, Wisconsin. I left after 21 years, last August, and started my own business called Landscape Prescriptions by MD. And I have a booth here, so I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I’m still involved in the field and still a tree hugger and love plants. So do stop by my booth and see what I’m doing. We’re gonna dive into a real fun topic today, though, I think it’s important. The reason why we come to these garden expos is not only to get a hint of spring and be inspired through these winter months, but certainly to get some ideas and talk about new ways of gardening, better ways of gardening, and hopefully we continue to not only garden, but share our love of gardening to youth, and perpetuate the importance of being outside and that connection in our landscapes and gardens. Clarifying the topic, this isn’t gardening for mature gardeners, meaning it’s not all older gardeners.

I think through the progression of our lives, it’s important to understand there’s different ways of gardening and ways of approaching it with the intent of hopefully being able to do it as long as we possibly can. Certainly enjoying the benefits of being immersed in our magical spaces. A couple of volunteers here at Rotary Botanical Gardens doing a wonderful job. And I may, despite leaving the gardens, I’ll talk quite a bit about what we were doing there. because not only did we have many volunteers, but had a strong approach to making sure everyone was gardening in a great capacity. So I mentioned the topic clarification, it’s gardening not only in our later years, but taking into account hopefully a full life of gardening. Now, many of you maybe are new gardeners, and you’re interested in the Expo as getting started. And that’s wonderful, absolutely. But I think the importance of connecting kids with gardening experiences creates gardeners for life, and that connection becomes important for future enjoyment without a doubt. So it tugs on the heartstrings without a doubt these kids, these are some leftover vegetables from our annual spring plant sale.

So donations would go to community gardens and kids’ gardens, and you get gardeners for life when they take a plant and nurture it. And that might be as easy as a seed packet or their own tomato plant. A couple of the kids are holding rhubarb there, so that might be an acquired taste for them later on. But we’ll see. And I can’t say enough about one of the most important images you’ll see this morning I think is this, and gardening as we age includes the youngsters at our plant sale. Seeing mom and son here working together, selecting out varieties for home. Again, these connections. Little Amanda here was only, I wanna say 18 months, less than two years old. There helping mom do some planting. And again, that connection becomes so important.

So are you grunting yet? [audience laughing] You know, I am. I’ll be 50 this year, and they say 50, I know, [audience laughing] So. . . [audience murmuring] Thank you for the sympathy. [audience laughing] So if 50 is the new 40, that means I should feel like I’m 39, and I really don’t. But I am grunting now. And I feel like there’s a couple of things I could have done differently. We’re not all as flexible as Eva, one of our volunteers at Rotary Gardens. And the idea of getting down and doing traditional two-dimensional gardening, getting down at ground level, which is how we typically garden in most cases, becomes more difficult, and maybe we’re paring back a little bit on the space we’re gardening in this capacity.

Not so much the enjoyment of plants growing in these situations, but the actual getting down and dirty becomes a little more difficult. It should continue to be enjoyable, no doubt about it. Glenna Miller, here on the left, is 85 years young. She actually passed recently. But it’s about adjusting our approach and expectations. So the reality check, if we’re doing things that are painful, and we’re starting perhaps to do more of those things, we need to alter how we approach that. And I think all too often, we realize the benefits of gardening, the exercise, the fresh air, and sometimes we feel the burn the next day. But sometimes it’s not a bad thing, knowing that we got out there and we’re moving, and I’m on the soapbox here. So I have the captive audience. But all too often, people aren’t moving as much as they used to.

And an interesting fact that Americans spend 93% of their time inside, on average. That’s crazy. And I think we need to change that trend and get out in our gardens. The founder of Rotary Gardens, Dr. Robert Yahr, 94 years young. He’s not able to garden in this capacity anymore as he’s aged, but he gardens in containers at home, and has modified, he’s still getting his fix, so to speak, by modifying his garden at home. This image, these young ladies, in their earlier years were active gardeners. And in a assisted living situation where simply repotting houseplants, the connection with the soil, not only a task done well, and the sense of completion, and camaraderie, and everything that goes hand in hand with the socialization here. But it can be as simple as something like this for getting a fix. And Rotary Gardens is now going on the road with programs like this, which I think is important.

There’s a lot of demographics and groups that can’t literally get to our botanic garden. And as a side note, do always visit your local botanic gardens, without a doubt. So what are your priorities, the realistic assessment of what your garden needs, because all too often, we may be perhaps install more than we can maintain. And that’s why it’s important to incrementally install and expand our gardens. Make sure you can maintain what you’re putting out there, and I use myself as an example. We tore out our entire front yard and were well-intentioned with vegetables and planting the front yard, and within two to three years, we realized that was a huge mistake. And are now paring back, and I’m not a huge fan of turf, but we are going back to some turf in front. We just can’t keep up with it. So account for the discrepancy in what you can physically do or account for in what you have to be done. And I think that makes sense.

And there’s no shame in editing your garden or doing something a little different, but we’ll talk about some opportunities as they relate to physical adjustments, how we can change how we approach gardening. Adapting the garden. And certainly, there’s some wonderful tools that are better for us to use. Take care of your body. Think of your body as a gardening tool. Going back in time, I would have done a lot of things differently, that would include just for feeling better in life, a lot of stretching, and yoga, and some other things. I know it’s never too late, but use your body properly. Maximizing longevity, obviously is a goal for all of us. Knees and back, of course are prone to more strain, and at Rotary Gardens, seeing the median age of volunteers increase, ’cause that’s the sad commentary is we’re not seeing younger volunteers. Everyone seems busy regardless of what’s going on in folks’ lives, we’re not seeing 30 to 40-year-old volunteers for the most part.

So there is a strain on our bodies as we get older. So I’ve seen our volunteers change what they’re able to do, and we accommodate that. But again, we all want our bodies to do what we need, not only in our gardens, but in life in general. So the comfortable range of motions, all the things that make sense. Don’t ignore those nagging challenges, those issues, where maybe there is some pain, or stress, or strain on your body. Again, some examples, Adele’s 90, and he’s pretty limber, he’s doing his thing. So some sound advice when you’re gardening, take your time. It’s not a race; the good posture thing becomes important. Good posture in life. Varying the tasks.

If you’re down on the ground weeding, it’s hard to stop, we know that, and as you move along, you realize you’re two to three hours into it and you need help getting up, and that happens. But by varying your tasks, again, it makes sense in life. You’re minimizing the strain that one task might be perpetuating on your body. That could be constant planting for hours on end. And at the gardens, we try to do that. At least every hour, mix it up, and that helps out a lot. Designing your garden for comfort, for access. The ergonomic tool thing we’ll touch on a little bit, tools that work better for us. Alternative planting methods. These are all topics we’ll jump into a little bit more, but get rolling.

I’ll get into that in a little more detail as well. But accessibility in the gardens, Joan here with some poor knees, getting the traditional on-your-knees gardening and getting back up, impossible for her. So sitting on this 18 to 19-inch wall, she can garden behind her. So she typically will plant all the impatiens within reach of this wall, which is perfect. So it’s bringing the garden up to Joan, not insisting that Joan get down into the garden. And so not all of us have masonry, we don’t have raised beds necessarily, but I’m gonna show you some fun things that you can do at home. If you’re ever in Chicago, do go to the Chicago Botanic Garden. The Buehler Enabling Garden is dynamite. Lots of great things, including raised beds. It’s an all-accessible garden, was developed many years ago.

Absolutely gorgeous for all visitors, but it starts to hit on some of the things we’re talking about today. And that’s being able to continue to garden in situations that are beyond what we consider traditional. And again, that’s our two-dimensional gardening at ground level. Late season, some beautiful raised beds, a lot of the blue you see there are asters that were put in, notice again, accessibility from a wheelchair or sitting on the wall. I will say, the designers of the garden, in chatting with them, one of the things they wish they had modified was the sharp corners on the beds were catching people. So I’ve seen a lot of raised beds in other situations that have rounded corners. And notice these raised beds built for different levels, and wheelchair accessibility, where the chair can roll underneath, at three different heights. And the reason for that is all wheelchairs aren’t the same size, and this, the lowest one accommodates kids in a wheelchair. That’s what they look like filled out. Very shallow soil volume.

So you are a little limited in what you’re growing in there. But what a great way to be able to reach out and garden based on your abilities. Vander Veer Garden over in Davenport, Iowa, wonderful enabling garden here. Look at the rounded corners, the raised beds, there’s those again, rounded corners. Drainage becomes important. These are essentially, larger containers. And ultimately, a wide range of plants can be grown. And talk about accessibility with a tomato, one arching over. There are trailing tomatoes. I think this is just the big one that just flopped over.

But you can still get at the fruits. Edgerton Hospital, wonderful healing garden. It’s great to see developments at hospitals and care centers, where there’s a realization, there’s the scientific proof that patients looking out on greenery and nature, they heal faster, which would make sense to us as gardeners, but having these wonderful gardens, not only for patients, but for the visitors and families of patients, and staff to recharge and get out there. As opposed to a picnic table out in the lawn with a tree. There’s more elaborate gardens that are being developed, which I think are worth it. So all sorts of examples of raised beds, we won’t have time, it becomes a container talk when we get into how to build these things. But don’t underestimate the physics involved with proper construction. These aren’t necessarily, they’re easier opportunities to garden where mobility may be a challenge, but they’re not necessarily easier to construct if you catch my drift. There’s the maintenance, it’s doing it right from the get-go. So we’ll talk about these raised beds, planters, containers, et cetera.

There’s some great opportunities, and these essentially are all bringing the garden up for us. So a standard container on the right, it’s a nice elephant ear coleus. Notice, incidentally, the reliance simply on foliage, which is, can be a contributor, through a huge range of the season. I encourage you with all your plants, consider the value of the longevity of ornamentality with foliage alone. Flowers are certainly excellent, but this is a 24-inch tall container. So my mom has some bum knees, so she’s also gardening in 24-inch tall, 24-inch diameter containers. She has about 12 of them, and that’s her garden space. So accessibility, there’s less body strain using my mom is the example, she’s able to garden with a little bit of a stoop. If the garden were a little taller, that becomes what we call belly button height gardening, you’re just gardening right out in front of you. And the nice thing about containers though, is the control of the soil, the drainage, doing it right again becomes important.

Erosion control. Some of this relates to the benefits again of containers. Pest avoidance, this is a separate topic really, but in essence, elevating the plants sometimes keeps the critters away. But we found out how nimble woodchucks are, and how much they like sweet potato vines. So they’ll work those over. Containers, the extra space simply means, think about we’re always thinking about open soil, two-dimensional garden space that we can plant. Think about nontraditional areas on your deck, your patio, your front stoop, there’s hardscape surfaces that can accommodate containers and expand your gardening opportunities, and increase your accessibility, and certainly what you can grow. And a great example at Rotary Gardens. And wonderful story, the mother of one of our ground staff members, notice this slab of concrete. So she grew up having her own garden and is in an assisted care facility, where she has this 10 by 10 slab of concrete.

She can’t garden anywhere else on the property, which is maintained by a private company. She can enjoy the view, but she was falling into a depression about not being able to get her fix, as I’ve said, with gardening. So we built her this raised bed. It’s 10 inches deep, the soil, heavy duty. Now imagine, you should understand the wet weight, meaning when this is wet and has plants in it, it’s not easy to move, so pick a permanent location. But needless to say, she’s getting her fix because she can walk right outside, do her thing, replant it every year, and see it from inside as well. And opportunities like this, and I should have started by saying similar situation, in that she’s not getting down and back up anymore in terms of gardening. So she’s doing everything at belly button height. So with planters, you have to consider the dimensions, it’s important; appropriate materials, the longevity of the materials becomes important. As a side note, you’ll see a lot of raised beds, and you’ll note they’re all fairly narrow, and the reason for that is you have to consider reach.

So that when you think about a taller, belly button height garden, four foot width is typical, because it can be gardened from both sides. The reach for adults is about 24 inches. So imagine if that were a five foot-wide bed, that center foot is hard to reach, there’s a bit of a stretch. Drainage becomes vital for something like you see on the left. That’s at Allen Centennial Gardens here on the UW-Madison campus. Appropriate soil. I don’t want to turn this into a container talk, but all too often, we don’t consider 80 to 90% of your success with container gardening is proper soil and drainage. The plants is the icing on the cake; that really is the easy part. Overbuild, maintain for longevity. And a great example, we have some wonderful retired carpenters, so when I’m seeing things like this in gardening magazines, I just cut the photos out and they make ’em.

That never rolled, that never rolled, just so you know. Imagine the weight in that thing. You see the little wheels? The wheels are plastic, and they’re already flattened out, [audience laughing] it was a nice deep container, perfect drainage and great. And we had volunteers that, with mobility challenges, this was perfect for them to garden. We built these little tiered planters; not a lot of soil volume in these, but accessibility. So greens, shallow rooted crops. This could, imagine sowing lettuce in there and having something like that. Cutting back on that two or three times, and then segue into some heat-tolerant summer vegetable that doesn’t need a lot of soil volume. Now, imagine this out on the back patio against the garage, in an area where you don’t have soil, and being able to get to this becomes important. I tend to go on tangents upon tangents.

But a simple container’s one of the best ways to start a kid gardening, having an identifiable space that they can reach easily and have them, shoot for early success, give them things that will grow well. So we decided to build a lot of these. A lot of fun things, hot peppers, a lot of herbs growing. Herbs needing perfect drainage for the most part, and certainly a lot of heat and not needing a ton of soil. But some dimensions to throw at you. I mentioned the width, 48 inches wide. I will say I’m not a huge fan of using tires for plantings. I worry about chemicals leaching out of tires, but 30 to 36 inches is the belly button height, the standing access. And then there’s some dimensions for various wheelchair accessibility. That 18 to 19 to 24 inches tops is for sitting and working, and wheelchair accessibility.

Soil depth becomes important. The reason I mention that is in our deepest containers, we have a three to four-foot container. We’re not necessarily filling it entirely with soil. If it’s a raised bed that connects to the ground, it’s full of soil, but larger containers that are movable, we always put 24 inches of soil. So what’s under there is rubble or something that drains freely, but fills some of the volume of the pot. So we do find 24 inches adequate for almost everything we’re growing. But just some examples to whet your appetite on some of these things. You can purchase things like this. If you’re handy, you can build them. Again, choice of materials becomes important.

That drainage, all too often drainage is inadequate, and sometimes has to be augmented later on as older drainage holes fill. Here’s a fence; think about the ubiquitous eight foot tall Menard-style fence; you know, it’s a divider, but it may be the opportunity as a backdrop, not only for other types of plants, but something like this. My criticism of this is having to walk through those hostas to even get to those those herbs, [audience chuckling] but kind of a nifty use of the space. And some heavy-duty raised beds. Again, something like this is, I’m not exaggerating when I say, probably 2,500 pounds. A little workbench. Here’s some of the raised beds. We developed 15 or 16 different raised beds, and we have a group called the Green Side Up, and they have various cognitive and physical impairments. And so we’ve developed various containers to see how successful they are for accessibility. Something like this worked out real well.

Notice how it tapers to a V in the center, the deepest portion. So we’re putting deeper rooted plants in the center, I should say our volunteers are picking the plants. But ultimately, this also allows getting right up against the container. Raised beds with little sitting walls. As a side note, notice in the back, the PVC piping of the colorful red and green and blue? Those are frameworks for tomatoes. That gardener has said, they’ve dictated the space the tomatoes will take up. So they’re training indeterminate tomatoes, which we all know are floppy and cover a lot of real estate. They’re saying, “This is your space. ” So they’ve increased air circulation between the plants, they’ve kept the varieties separate, and they can get in between there to get the fruits. You can do that sort of thing.

This is recycled lumber put into raised beds and a concrete area. The concrete, a slab like that is fairly expensive, but fairly easy to clean off as well. And over my travels, just seeing a lot of these. And the situations you’re seeing are typically at gardens where they’re accommodating for volunteers or participants that again, have the mobility challenges, and back to gardening as we age, this type of gardening might become more attractive to us in terms of certainly accessibility. And you can get real fancy with something like this. Literally brick and mortar. I thought this was interesting. Imagine if you are on the left side of this planter, you’re gardening at belly button height. On the right side, it’s wheelchair accessible, and there’s a sitting bench there. And this is all of that recycled lumber, kind of an interesting planter.

Soil depth seems a little limited, but ultimately another opportunity to consider. This was real interesting; this actually rolls. You can’t see the casters that will keep this thing rolling. But imagine this out on the back deck or patio where you’re essentially planting the center, and you could be entertaining or eating dinner. Or you could be picking herbs right out of the center of that if you liked. It’s only about half full of soil. There’s only about 18 inches of soil in there. Horse troughs, you know, why not? Of course, ample drainage becomes important, and as a side note, always be wary. First of all, the courtesy hole you get in a container when you buy it is never enough for adequate drainage. So consider adding more.

Be careful drilling holes into terracotta and ceramic. You wanna be careful with that. But understand sometimes when a container, even with good drainage holes, sometimes they’ll create a suction effect on hard pavement, where water has a hard time vacating that space, so shimming up a container just a little bit will allow that water to vacate. So again, when this is watered, drainage should be very sharp. There’s some dill in the center. This is at the Chicago Botanic Garden, on a rooftop garden. And notice there’s a low brick wall here with just a planter with all sorts of fun things going on. So keep imagining yourself in these situations where, admittedly for myself, it’d be real nice if you’re picking vegetables or gardening, just to be walking along and doing it. As opposed to getting up and down, although we still want to keep limber and continue to do what we can. A nice planter there, alstroemeria, and the trailer is a type of lotus.

There’s a lot of these prefab containers. This is a rolling situation with planters on both sides. My criticism of it is it’s extremely shallow containers; there’s not a lot of soil involved. Keep in mind, sun exposure becomes important, ’cause there were sun-loving herbs on both sides of this. So if I had it at home, I’d be rotating it to make sure everything’s getting ample sun. Drainage becomes important. All those containers have to drain, and they’re likely draining into the container below them. So the real danger is the lowest containers getting soggy. No traditional plantable space here, but this is a metal contraption. It’s a three-tiered planter.

Notice eggplant, salvias. There’s all sorts of wonderful plants coming out of these. So vertical planters, this may not be reality for all of us, but first of all, plants don’t mind growing sideways out of vertical situations. I think many of us know this. This is a planter at the Chicago Botanic Garden. There’s pelargoniums or scented geraniums, nasturtiums, all sorts of fun stuff in there. This is in that Buehler Enabling Garden, by the way. Where you can get at ’em, and again, now these, the face of this folds out, it’s relined with plastic, which is held in by mesh. The soil is redone every year. The drainage is absolutely perfect.

So keep that in mind. I’ve shown this over the past. Some of you have seen this, but I’ll dive in. This is, so we don’t all have a 10-foot brick wall to say “I’m gonna put one of these up,” keeping in mind what I said earlier. It’s not four screws and hoping for the best. This is a shot in May, where you’re seeing parsley is the green and then pansies, and then I came back in summer, and they had transitioned it to thyme and trailing oregano is the light pink you’re seeing there. So whether you’re taking these herbs for use or not is secondary. Trailing oregano incidentally is not the best culinary oregano. That same planter with spring greens. And again, what a great approach.

So accessibility is there for most people. And there’s a lot of plants we can start putting in hanging baskets, and my younger daughter, when she was younger, three or four, she started planting baskets that we would hang with shorter shepherd’s hooks. Trailing tomatoes, things like that. So she was able to get at them and it elevated the plants. And here you see strawberries. These are perennial, so you’re not leaving this basket up over the winter months. Something else has to happen, of course, but there’s a lot of development in shorter vine length vegetables that are great for raised beds. Keep thinking short vine length, zucchini, squash, pumpkins, so they’re not taking up a huge amount of square footage, but still have productivity. So the general comment is, even if you’re bringing the garden up into smaller situations, smaller square footage, there are more compact forms of many of the plants you enjoy that can be shoehorned in there. This is cucumber, short vine length cucumber called pickles.

And the trailing tomatoes are wonderful. I mentioned indeterminate tomatoes earlier. Those are tomatoes that produce over a long period of time. These are, the trailing tomatoes are mostly determinant, meaning they’ll ripen up roughly the same time. You’ll get a lot of tomatoes at once and they won’t go the distance, typically into September. But still, elevating in a situation where maybe there’s not traditional soil, or get right out there and pick those tomatoes. So back to the grunting and groaning. This is the Wisconsin-Illinois chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society. They have a booth here, you’ll see their hypertufa troughs and all sorts of fun things. Some of these folks are here today.

Now this is the Alpine garden, and the old elbow grease, getting down there and weeding in the worst of soils, and I assure you it’s the worst of soils. This becomes difficult, and I’m not here to advocate the use of herbicides in lieu of physically removing weeds, but we all know healthy gardens and healthy plants can start to hopefully compete with those weeds, and minimize their impact on our gardens. But again, the old school gardening isn’t gonna be going away, getting down. And there’s some weeding here among spring bulbs that are still yet to go dormant. This is here at Rotary Gardens. A kids group. And what was fun about these seventh graders, many had never planted before. So it was great to get ’em out there, show ’em how to do it, and have them return to see what happened with this border. But just showing you some of the traditional gardening, which you’re all aware of, some great volunteers at Rotary. Bev on the left, not as limber as Ron, her husband.

So Ron does the standing work and Bev works what she can reach from the wall, again, 18 to 19 inches. So she takes care of the weeding and planting along that edge. And there’s Glenna, who I showed earlier. Glenna, there’s no getting down and back up, so she had this sitting bench with her for years, and from that, she can do a lot of gardening. I do want to mention these benches, which I think are exceptional. Not only can you sit on it as you see Glenna doing here previously, but what you’re not seeing in this image is if you flip it over, there’s a pad underneath. You can actually use it as a kneeling pad. And what are legs right now become handles to allow you to get down and back up. Again, that belly button height. Now here, potting up some plants, but so much easier than doing it at ground level.

So not all tools are considered, or created equally, we know that. Price is usually an indicator of quality. The lifetime warranty is great. I was in England for quite some time, and this was neat to see these old school tools, although they weren’t built necessarily for comfort, but the longevity thing was there. Caring for your investment is imperative. And at Rotary Gardens, when we had the time, we were constantly sharpening, oiling, doing whatever we could to prolong the longevity of these tools. So you consider what they’re made of. Get ’em in your hands and go through the motions. That becomes important to see the comfort, and do know that the way you’ve been traditionally using rakes and shovels, the way tools are meant to be used. They serve a function for us, but the way our bodies are engaging those tools is not necessarily conducive to, I should say it’s conducive to more strain than it should be.

So consider the comfort and fit of these things. So the modifications might include a change in grips. Take into account the different user groups that might be using ’em. Notice the green handled tools there, just the arc in those is less strain on your wrist when you’re planting. We had a grant for ergonomic tools, and they were a tough sell to our volunteers ’cause they looked a little different than what they know as a trowel, or a shovel, or what have you. Now they’re some of the most popular tools for particular, our older volunteers. So ergonomic tools are important. There’s some old school tools in England, some of those older than all of us in the room. That’s a shot I took it as Expo a couple years ago. Fiskars being a nice company, but again, understand what these tools can do for you and take ’em through the motions.

Chicago Botanic has a nice display of some different tools. Notice there’s on the far left, there’s tools that have lengthening handles, you can adjust the handle length for comfort, instead of adjusting your body for a given length. Notice that large shovel, the adaptations, instead of the traditional holding the shovel, imagine holding it as you normally would, but look at the the add-ons, the handles that have been added. So a lot of these again, have additional benefit with less strain on the body. Rotary Gardens for four or five years has hosted a horticultural therapy symposium. And that lifelong gardening committee has brought a wonderful assortment of tools, and it’s been eureka moments for everyone as they’re using them and saying, “These are really comfortable. “I can see why this would cause less strain on my body. ” And notice the ladies holding different types of trowels. And I’ll show it a little bit more of an example of these tools. Whether it’s modifying an existing tool, maybe a favorite tool that you have, or purchasing something specifically.

Pillaged this off the internet, and I’m not promoting this specifically, but consider a standard rake and how you’re holding it. First of all, with the narrow wooden handle, or plastic, there’s a lot of grip as you’re pulling on this. Notice the handles, your hands are held at 90 degrees, as opposed to adjusting your wrists. So the snake rake is putting a lot less strain on your wrists. And there’s ways again of modifying rakes and even just getting some padding on the handle is something that’s better for you. Think about, if you’re done gardening and you’re just like, “Wow, my hands are really hurting. ” Sometimes that’s inevitable, but we want to, again, increase the longevity of our bodies out in the garden. So some curved handles. That’s an example of some of what you can pre-purchase, a little bit of padding there. But if you think about how you traditionally hold your hand on a trowel, this is just a lot less strain in terms of the rotation of your wrist.

The easy grip tools. These were the toughest sell at Rotary Gardens ’cause people are like, “I don’t want to hold a trowel like that. ” But holding a trowel like that is so much less strain on your wrist as you’re digging, and you get used to it after a while. But think about how you’re rotating your hand for the trowel, and the strain along the wrist. That becomes tougher for all of us, without a doubt, so ergonomic tools, incidentally, exist for all different fields, not just gardening, but it’s exciting to see the developments and what’s happening here. There’s some with an additional wrist support. There’s an example of holding it. So that seems like a lot of hardware to dig a hole. But if this person has trouble holding a traditional trowel, this might be the way to do it. And when we talk about continuing to garden, trowel work is part of it, as we plant.

So do consider that. The easy grip adaptations, here’s a garden rake, and you saw this earlier with a large shovel at Chicago Botanic Garden, where you can actually buy and secure additional handles to the orientation that you like. And imagine yourself going through the motions of the rake by itself again, with both your your wrists slightly angled, and the strain. And then going to a 90 degree arrangement. You actually can put more torque into the rake in terms of pulling and pushing. And to me, why didn’t we realize this 40 years ago? Not endorsing again trade names, but the Radius set of tools are excellent again for that slight curvature. And even a shovel like this with a circular backing, as opposed to just a straight-handled end. Think about a straight-handle end, then with any long-handle tool, your backhand has to grip quite strongly, and a lot of the force you’re using and pushing a tool goes right through the wrist as opposed to having a hand at a 90 degree angle on the back. And I’m not an occupational or physical therapist, so hopefully I’m giving you the right impression on how these can benefit. At Olbrich Botanical Gardens, nice to see how their tool organization is superior here.

A lot of those again, and that’s not atypical for tools to have that type of backing, but it sure helps. And the old-fashioned kneeling pad. The number of times, my 21 years at Rotary Gardens probably 4,000 times I said to staff or volunteers, “Why don’t you have a kneeling pad?” “Oh, I’m okay, I’m okay. ” I was cocky about it my 20s and 30s too, kneeling, a kneeling pad is the minimum you can do for really taking some of the stress off of your knees, and whether it’s ground level or certainly concrete or grass, absolutely imperative. And here’s another example of one of those fun arrangements. What you don’t see in here, by the way, is a little storage compartment as well, where you can put some tools, but imagine sitting, you could be sitting, this is only 18 inches tall, so you’re squatting pretty low. But to Glenna’s example, she would sit on something like this and be able to reach, and garden, and do her thing. But then you can flip it, and there’s that kneeling pad in the center, so those leg handles as I mentioned earlier, become arm handles, hand handles, so you can lower yourself down and push yourself back up. And we bought five or six of these at Rotary Gardens and they’re constantly in use, constantly. And there’s Glenna doing her thing.

When I mentioned get rolling earlier there, the wheel was invented for a reason. And whether it’s good old-fashioned Radio Flyer or something else, moving materials out into the garden, back and forth, don’t keep relying on your back. Using an example, I mean, taking care of your back obviously is vital. In my younger years, cutting down a crab apple and doing one of the traditional. Yeah, I bet I can carry that, and having a large log and throwing it over my shoulder, wrenching my back and you know, 15 years of agony dealing with that. Some of you’ve gone through similar issues where you constantly feel like you’re in physical therapy. But if there’s the opportunity to alleviate lifting, and certainly hauling more materials, it makes absolute sense to get a good garden cart. Considering the terrain, obviously, if you’re going over grass or access, there’s a lot of great developments out there. And Olive here does cut flower arrangements for Rotary Gardens. So she’s got some nice tires on that wagon so she can get wherever she needs to go.

I do want to mention the Wellness Garden briefly at Rotary Botanical Gardens. And what’s exciting about the space, it’s only two years old. And it was built to provide all accessibility, and if you’ve been to the gardens, and I hope you will visit, it’s the 31st year of the gardens. It’s a 20 acre garden on the site of an old sand and gravel pit, started by a Rotarian, Dr. Yahr, who you saw earlier. And this was our first new garden in seven years. And it was a tough sell to our board of directors ’cause they said, “Isn’t the entire garden wellness? “Doesn’t it promote feelings of well-being?” Yes, absolutely. What we wanted to create was a very sensory-heavy space that was all accessible, that provided programmatic potential, meaning bringing in user groups to actively garden, to plant, and providing access, if you look in the upper right of the slide, you see a path that goes to a roadway. That roadway is the closest way for some of our mobility-impaired groups to get right into that garden, as opposed to walking 150 yards from our visitor center. The garden will continue to develop and very colorful in its arrangement, but it’s meant for again, sensory engagement, and it’s been a massive hit.

And so again, the term wellness garden or healing garden is a bit arbitrary, because I do feel we get that from all our gardens, but there’s ways that we can tweak a garden for everything we’ve talked about. Accessibility, certainly the sensory experience. That was year one, there’s a wonderful water feature in the center. Note the raised beds in the foreground there, two different heights, 24 inches for wheelchair and sitting height, and then belly button height, 36 inches. And we have a long list of volunteers. They were waiting for years for this that couldn’t do the traditional ground level gardening. They were waiting for the opportunity. And we had certainly large containers that folks could plant, but this allowed a huge amount of square footage to be planted and was super exciting to get the kids involved in planting it. All those little feet. It was nice to get them out there.

They did just an excellent job. Filled in real nicely. So in terms of a visual effect, in terms of sensory engagement, it’s beautiful. And it’s meant for everyone who visits the garden. What’s hidden in here’s a lot of other plants used for programming. And this past year, the majority of the garden was maintained by various volunteers and groups, many with various impairments. And it just was a huge hit. And I won’t, I tend to start talking about a lot of these plants, but certainly color to my earlier comment. I’m on a tangent with design here, but note how important foliage becomes. Most of what you’re seeing here are seasonal plants.

That bright yellow is a Golden Delicious Pineapple Sage. But fun to offer all that compositional interest. We do need to take time to sit and certainly enjoy our gardens, that becomes important. But we do know once we sit down, it gets harder and harder to get up. I have to say, I’m constantly impressed by our older volunteers. We have a group of volunteers called the Grumpies, the Grumpy Old Men. And you remember the movie, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon? So it started, the garden started in ’98? Excuse me, no, excuse me, ’89. And ultimately, it started with three Grumpies. And it was guys that would come in on Monday and Thursday mornings, have a cup of coffee and do a project, and then it blossomed into many, many gentlemen coming and including Grumpettes. [audience laughing] We have a Grumpette in the room, I see Bonnie in the back there.

But the great thing about it was I couldn’t believe these were gentlemen who weren’t necessarily interested in gardening. Their previous life skills like carpentry, plumbing, electrician, et cetera, helped the gardens in many capacities, but their desire to get out and be active was so important. And many of their contemporaries, after retirement, were doing a lot of sitting and wondering what they should be doing. Now granted, some of the gentleman came down at the behest of their wives saying, “Get out of the house and go find something to do. ” But the relationships that were formed, of course the physical benefits. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take time to sit down and enjoy the garden. But we do want to be happy when we’re out there, without a doubt. So that becomes absolutely vital, in that health and happiness becomes important. Engaging the children is one of the most important things we can do. I mentioned that earlier, and this mom and her daughter came to one of our work days.

We are always good about sending extra plants home for kids to try, and I would encourage all of you as you go through the Expo, if you have the opportunity to buy some seeds or something for the kids, do that. It’s one of those things that I think you’ll make gardeners for life, you’ll forge that connection. As we close, gardening as we age should be, we should still have the same benefit of enjoyment, whether we’re growing produce for edibility, growing our own herbs, trying to improve our gardens, but it should be something that doesn’t continue to be a negative strain on our bodies. And there’s ways of adapting the garden, as you’ve seen, you’ll see some great ideas in the Garden Expo. Again, changing the way we approach how we use our tools, how we garden. There’s some exceptional ways of doing that. And I hope this just gets you started on some ideas. This again, is what I’m doing, do visit my booth. I think there’s a lot of fun things going on. And we do have a little bit of time for questions.

So I think what I’ll do for the sake of time is why don’t we take five questions and then we’ll call it a morning. [audience member speaking off mic] Yeah, the question is about when using lumber, particularly for elevated gardens or container situations, is there a concern about using treated lumber? So 20 or 30 years ago, I would have had a heavier concern, I would say absolutely not if you’re growing vegetables or herbs, because of those chemicals potentially leaching into the plant material. A lot of modern lumber now is heat treated or has some other treatment process, although at Rotary Gardens, we tend to lean on cedar for its longevity, and we’re not, we use no treated wood just because of the concern of, as you just mentioned. So the concern is still there, despite the fact that I feel it’s a lot safer to use what’s considered treated lumber. If that makes sense. [audience member speaking off mic] Great question about pots. What can you leave out over the winter? I’ll start by saying don’t leave any pots out over winter with soil in ’em. And I hope that makes sense, and not that that necessarily will cause damage to the pot, but with a tough winter it will, think about that soil freezing and thawing, and what that can do, particularly to terra-cotta and ceramics. A lot of the modern plastics or fiberglass pots are totally fine outside. But when you’re looking at those types of pots, modern synthetic containers, the plastics and fiberglass are now UV protected.

Think about 15, 20 years ago, your plastic pots started to fade and get brittle over four to five years. And a lot of that is just because of the sun. So at Rotary Gardens, all the containers that we can move are totally emptied of soil late in the season. We actually sterilize them with a 1 to 10 bleach to water solution, just rubbing the insides, cleaning ’em off. We flip ’em upside down and they’re left outside, so there’s nothing inside. There’s no issue of that freezing and thawing thing. If you have the ability to put ’em in the garage, that helps with the longevity. But back to my earlier comment. I’m wary of leaving anything with soil in it. I’ll contradict that by saying my mom has had the same soil in a container for like 20 years.

[audience laughing] And it’s worked for her. Don’t ever use garden soil in your containers, make your own mix, the drainage is important. Know what you’re getting into for appropriate soil mix. Yes, sir. [audience member speaking off mic] The comment about a ceramic pot is flipping it over even with the soil in it, and as it settles out, doesn’t have an issue with damage. [audience member speaking off mic] Just have to tip it, although I would argue what we do at the gardens, due to our concern about reusing any of the same soil and containers. If we have any fungal issues, which had been prevalent the last three summers because of the wetness, we actually are taking all of our soil out and composting it, and then starting new. Making sure the drainage has been established with every container at Rotary Gardens, including hanging baskets, having additional drainage holes. See, we’re there every day, so they never dry out. We’re not worried about anything drying out, so we’re able to hand water most of these things.

But there are ways of adding materials to your containers to maintain moisture, slow release fertilizers. But what we like is that sharp drainage. And I will say the soil we mix for containers is two-thirds soilless mix, that’s the real light and fluffy stuff. It’s primarily peat moss. It has perlite and vermiculite, the white flecks and beads. But one third is compost. We add the compost for nutrient value, for tilth, for moisture retention, and then slow release fertilizer. Any of our containers that have annuals in ’em also get liquid fertilizer five times a year, June through August. That seems like a lot, but we’re doing these lush annuals. You saw the elephant ears and some of the larger tropicals.

We’re beefing them up with a lot of fertilizer, which is not essential for all plants. I think we know that. Two more questions, yes. [audience member speaking off mic] The question is, do we reuse the soil in containers? And if so, how would we enrich it? We do not reuse the soil in the containers. So all of that is composted, with that compost two years later coming back into the gardens, but areas where there’s raised beds, like the Wellness Garden, you saw the two foot and three foot high beds. We’re not excavating those, but what we are doing is augmenting with a little compost every year, just to enrich it. And that over time, that starts to add some volume, but we feel that becomes important. Folks that have reused their soil, what I encourage you, is to still empty your pot, to make sure your drainage holes are good. Put your old soil on a tarp, add some good stuff, churn it all together. And you can reuse it, but to my earlier comment of the worry of perpetuation of fungal problems.

Yeah, Zana, did you have a question? [audience member speaking off mic] Yeah, so Zana’s question is about our containers. And what do we do with the fertilizer? So every container at the gardens– and no product endorsements here– but we have the pelletized Osmocote fertilizer. So it releases nutrients for four months when the soil temperature’s 70 degrees. So that’s June, July, August, September, there’s fertilizer coming out of those beads. So starting in June, every three weeks, we go out with liquid fertilizer, and we water actually all of our annual beds, including the containers. So that equates to five additional times we’re actually, our last fertilizer application is in mid August. And everything seems to be extremely lush. And we’re not shy about the Osmocote. So it has a pretty good start with the slow release as well. By the way, soilless mix is very nutrient poor.

That’s the reason we do a third compost ’cause that light fluffy stuff is meant primarily for drainage and root penetration. It’s not super nutrient heavy. So that’s why we custom mix our own. And never buy a bag of potting soil that is hard to lift. If it has any heft to it, leave it be, and I hope that makes sense. One more question, yes. [audience member speaking off mic] What is our potting soil? So well, great question. So the soilless mix we’re pre-purchasing, that’s something that’s already been mixed and blended. So that word sounds odd, soilless. You’re like, “I want soil.

” But soilless mix means it’s not traditional gardening soil. Again, it’s primarily peat moss, bark finds. That you can purchase anywhere. Patronize your local garden centers first and foremost, by the way, there’s a lot of ’em here. The compost is our own. So the other third is our own compost. One third compost, two thirds soilless mix. And then the slow release fertilizer is churned, everything is churned up from top to bottom. And always water your containers before you plant ’em. You want things to settle down to see the height.

Always leave a lip on your containers. ‘Cause if you have that soil too high, and you’re not taking into account what your plants will displace, then you have a very high soil volume and as you water, it sheds off very quickly. So I think a lip makes sense. Yes. [audience member speaking off mic] Yeah, great question. If you’re thinking about how do I get compost or manure, or something to mix in these containers. First of all, always be wary of manure. It has to be adequately aged. So where can you find compost? There’s many places that sell compost. If you’re not home composting, look into it by the way, you really should.

There’s a lot of ways to do it with tumblers with small, a little four by four space you can do it. What’s always shocking to me is the amount of compost you produce is a lot less than you would ever think. So keep that in mind. Ideally, hopefully you have neighbors, you just have to have to shop around, but I’m always wary of buying bagged product if I don’t know its history. So that’s a tough one. The compost we’re adding is our own compost, or we buy something called mushroom compost, which is aged horse manure. And it’s been blended with bark finds. It’s also been heat sterilized, and I do that, because heat sterilization, they’re saying there’s no weed seeds in this compost. Not true. [audience laughing] We found that out after the horrible purslane year of 2010, where the purslane came up heavily.

But anyway, there’s great ways of doing. I know we’ve segued a little bit into a container talk, but keep in mind, you saw a lot of raised beds, containers is one of the best ways to bring the garden up, and continue to get your fix. And that’s a simple way of saying it. But again, gardening as we age should be fun, and share your love of gardening. Buy some seed packets for kids. Visit me at the booth. Thank you everyone for your time. [audience applauding]