This is the Difference Between a Spade and a Shovel

 From the New York Times:

Before the pandemic, the actress Drew Barrymore was not exactly known for her gardening skills. Still, last spring, she planted her first lawn. She bought some chickens, grew tomatoes, and “felt really empowered,” she told The Times. And now, she is among the celebrities capitalizing on the pandemic-induced gardening boom: She is the face of a lawn-care subscription service.

Many people turned to gardening last year, fueled by a desire for a hobby, self-sufficiency, or both. Celebrities and other brands took notice: Kate Hudson’s vodka brand teamed up with a plant delivery service to release a potted “love fern.” HGTV added shows on gardening, like “Martha Knows Best,” Martha Stewart’s reality series about life on her estate in Bedford, N.Y., and a coming topiary competition series.

Celebrities are vying for the lucrative role of guide to the growing audience of garden enthusiasts, as Ronda Kaysen writes in The Times. “Someone needs to explain the difference between a shovel and a spade.”

* * * * *

Hello, new gardening enthusiast! My name is Neal Sanders and I’m going to be your guide to the fabulous and lucrative world of home gardening. I am excited about this opportunity and I want you, as a consumer, to know my advice will not be tainted by any lawn-care subscription service sponsorship that might come along, nor my prospective affiliation with a premium vodka brand which I hope will sponsor me as soon as I develop a taste for the stuff.

Let us start with the question that apparently perplexes all novice gardeners: the difference between a shovel and a spade.  I’ll be honest here and admit that, until I looked it up on Wikipedia just now, I did not know there was a difference between the two.  But I’ll be damned! A spade is always shorter than a shovel and has a flat blade, while a shovel is angled and has a rounded scoop. You use a spade to edge stuff; you use a shovel to injure your back by digging out rocks. Spades are terrific for digging trenches (provided you don’t encounter any big rocks, which are called ‘potatoes’ in the trade). Shovels are best for leaning on while you consume quantities of ibuprofen (brand name sponsor to be substituted for generic drug).

Double-click for a larger image

Now, you could have learned this information by opening Google and typing in ‘difference between a spade and a shovel’, and it would even show helpful photos on the first screen. But you novices don’t seem to trust Google. You’d rather flood the HGTV message boards with a request for the answer or, better yet, hear it from a celebrity like me! That’s fine, and it gives me ample material for my forthcoming reality series, ‘Neal Knows More Than Martha’.

Real gardens are filled with rocks

I’m going to let you in on a secret: Martha doesn’t have a real garden. How can I be certain? When Martha puts a spade down into the soil to plant something (or, should she use a shovel?), she comes up with a rich mixture of loosely packed loam and compost, and plants a peony in two minutes. Real gardens – at least those anywhere close to New England, and Bedford, NY is nestled right up to the Connecticut border – aren’t like that, folks. In a real New England garden, your spade sinks down half an inch and hits a rock. And you spend the next two hours pulling out rock after rock, and then find there’s not enough soil to fill the hole and you spend two more hours searching for soil. After which your wife spots the leftover rocks and suggests you use them to mend one those quaint walls you fell in love with when you bought the property. But that’s another episode of my reality series, and it will likely require some caution for use of colorful, family-unfriendly language.

What else can we cover before our time runs out? How about this one: What exactly is a ‘Love Fern’, why would Kate Hudson be offering to deliver one, what does vodka have to do with it, and why would a gardener care?

Kate Hudson's Love Fern

Well, once upon a time (18 years ago), there was a film called, ‘How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days’ and Ms. Hudson was its female lead. In one scene, she walks in on her boyfriend’s poker game and spots a fern that has seen better days. She cries out, ‘our Love Fern!’ and takes it to the kitchen for resuscitation or, more likely, a proper burial. What does vodka have to do with it? Well, vodka is an exceptionally effective killer of ferns, which is something every gardener ought to know.  Beyond that, I have absolutely no information.

Maybe Martha can cover that one on her reality show.

Year 7 Begins

 

Our dream retirement home, April 20, 2021

On April 8, 2015, Betty and I moved into our ‘dream retirement home’; the abode we have every expectation of being our residence until we’re dragged out by our feet after our demise. The house was our own design: built to allow two adults to ‘age in place’.

We began in 2015 with a blank slate

Like the house, the garden began as a tabula rasa – a blank slate upon which to create ‘one last great garden’; built from the knowledge gained from predecessors dating back four decades. Betty is the architect of the garden; I am the guy who digs holes and moves rocks.

This final garden is designed to fulfill two purposes. The first is that it should be low-maintenance. For too many years, we had gardens that, in season, required upwards to 20 hours each week for maintenance. Betty’s goal was to have a property that required most of its care at the beginning and end of the season, and would both show well and need minimal care through the balance of the gardening year. In short, a garden that could be managed by a retired couple with lots of outside interests.

A flicker at our suet cage

The second – and perhaps more important – purpose, is that the garden should be pollinator and bird friendly. It should, to the greatest extent possible, use native plants and should be an extension of the conservation land we abut. Trees, shrubs, and perennials have been chosen for how well they fit the ‘pollinator-friendly’ requirement. There’s no grass – not a blade – nor are there any of the garden-center staples like Bradford pears (from China), Norway maples (from the Carpathians), or Kousa dogwood (from Asia). If it doesn’t host native birds, bees, or butterflies, it has no place in the garden.

Which doesn’t mean the garden is dull. Our trees put on spectacular shows, and our shrubs and perennials become blankets of durable bloom. You’ll see those photos over the next several months.

Our amelanchier about to bloom

The garden has grown organically.  In our first year we planted the specimen trees and a few dozen shrubs. The second year saw many shrubs and lots of perennials. Everything wasn't perfect: shrubs changed locations as we got to know where we had the best shade and sun. Some perennials simply didn't like the location. Others became too aggressive. It has been a learning experience.

This, the garden’s sixth season, should be the one when the vision becomes reality. We went to Garden in the Woods last week and came home with a single Ceoanthus americanus (New Jersey tea). In Aprils past, we would return with a car stuffed with shrubs and perennials. My goal this year is to document the garden as it reaches its mature status.

Our hyacinth border

I begin with bulbs. We have planted more that 4000 of them. We readily recognize they’re the most ‘foreign’ aspects of the garden (most spring bulbs originated in western Asia) but, if they are aliens, they’re friendly ones and, better still, they’re ephemeral. We are also cultivating our share of natives, like Mertensia virginica (Virginia bluebells), which have established themselves in the shadier spots of the back of the property, along with Jeffersonia diphylla (Twinleaf) and Trillium.

Twinleaf (white flower)
and bluebells

Our bulbs provide the first color of the season, and are placeholders until our flowering trees and shrubs begin putting on their displays.  Today (April 20), we have an Amalanchier ‘Autumn Brilliance’ just a day or two away from being a blizzard of white flowers.  The maples, in turn, all are showing their proto-leaves. Our native Dicentra (bleeding hearts) are doubling in size every few days and will be flowering before the end of the month.

So, sit back, enjoy the photos, and check back regularly.