It's hilarious how literally you take garden instructions/directives when you first start out in gardening. I remember someone telling me that daphne cuttings should be taken on Christmas Day, and each year the day would come and go, way too busy and distracting to think about daphne cuttings, and I'd think 'Oh well. Missed my chance. I'll try again next year'.
I also remember taking cuttings of azaleas (I was SO excited about azaleas, back then..), and the instructions in my one garden book said to put the cuttings into 'warmed' soil. So I spread the potting mix out thin on plastic, and covered it with another layer black plastic until it was nice and warm, then potted up the cuttings into it. It didn't occur to me that the soil should stay 'warm', on some kind of heated unit that might keep the soil in the low 20's or so in order to facilitate rooting. The instructions only said that they had to go in to warm soil, and so they did. In fact it was probably nearer hot, though immediately plummeting to ambient temperature. How could I have known otherwise?
What are you prepared to confess to doing as a beginner gardener, in response to inadequate, or too literal interpretation of, instruction?
(btw, finding a relevant pic was a struggle. Above is a kurume azalea, saved from itself by providing back up to Paeonia emodi)
What stupid/embarrassing things have you done in not quite understanding garden instructions?
Discussion
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Not quite on the topic but related – not sure how to pronounce quite a few plants so I often get blank looks when I say “what a lovely blah blah” only for the person to look at me blankly, then the penny drops , they laugh and say ” oh you mean …….!” Even something as simple as sedum – does it have a short “e” or is it long like seed-um ? Is cotinus pronounced cot-in-us or cot-eye-nus ? And as for cotyledon ……..! And not sure why I decided to give narcissus earlicheer a germanic flavour and pronounce it earlick-eer instead of early-cheer but I can laugh about it now without blushing!
I love this Irene. We’re all so hilariously insecure about pronunciation. My feeling is that as long as we manage to communicate what plant we’re talking about it just doesn’t matter. I say the short ‘e’ Sedum without any embarrassment (other than when my interlocutor has already said it the other way, and then I’m concerned that I sound like I’m correcting them), and cot-in-us. As for cotyledon, for me it’s exactly how it’s said when referring to the first two ‘leaves’ on a seedling. I don’t think it’s worth thinking about the ‘right’ way, but perhaps I’ve speaking from the confidence of someone who doesn’t really expect to be corrected… dunno. But earlick-eer is fabulously eccentric, given that it’s clear that it brings cheer early into the season. But I’m considering adopting it, nevertheless…
Last year I got very excited about growing veg from seed and grew so many seedlings I didn’t have the space or time to plant them all. I felt a bit silly after talking about my efforts all the time to anyone who would listen.
Weird how bragging always comes back to bite you in gardening. Having said that, I’m infinitely forgiving of myself on that score, looking back indulgently on my efforts, and skiting, and thinking how loveable and naive I was
Putting in the raspberry patch, I made the foolish mistake of telling my partner I was ignoring the usual advice to put in a root barrier on the basis that our climate is so difficult and our soil so terrible that nothing desirable (like raspberries) ever does that well and I was not expecting the plants to do well enough to need the root barrier. I am reminded of this comment on a regular basis as I dig the runners out of the lawn and my other vegie plots.. Shouda put the root barrier in.
Ah, yes. Our reasons for ignoring such advice sound so reasonable. So plausible. Until…