Why Let Your Own Back Yard Be a Source of Worry?

Someone else often expresses our feelings better than we ourselves can. This week, allow me to step aside and let my friend and co-worker Larry Williams, Okaloosa County Extension Agent, share some thoughts for gardeners. Following is a gardening column from Larry.

In times like these, it seems that our own perceived “problems” pale in comparison to the “big picture.”

While writing this article, I’m on “vacation.” My wife, Christy, and I were supposed to be on our way to New York City tomorrow morning (Wednesday, September 12). It would have been our first trip to New York. We already had our plane tickets to fly from Fort Walton Beach and our hotel reservations just minutes from the World Trade Center Buildings. The events that unfolded this morning (Tuesday, September 11) drastically changed our plans.

I’ve wanted to write an article like this for some time but the words would not come. In my day-to-day work, I have the opportunity to help people solve problems with their landscapes, lawns and gardens. I enjoy the problem solving part of my job as an extension agent. But I must admit I was looking forward to getting away for a few days to get my mind on something other than work. But I also felt the desire to write this article.

You’d be surprised how upset some people can be about a few weeds, a dying petunia or a tomato with a crack in it. They’ll let small things like this upset their entire world. It’s as if they think we live in a perfect world when it comes to their expectations for the plants in their own landscape. It has become apparent to me that too many people spend too much time letting too many small things bother them too much.

I’ll use a life experience in attempting to get across what I want to say in this article. I may or may not be successful. The reader will be the judge of that.

When my twin sister, Linda, and I were growing up in a small town in middle Georgia, an elderly married couple (Mr. and Mrs. Hunt) would crack pecans and give the shelled halves to us to eat. They’d hand the shelled pecans to us over the fence that separated our yards. At five or six years old this was a treat for my sister and me.

I remember their landscape. I remember Mrs. Hunt sweeping their dirt driveway lined with coconut sized rocks. She used handmade brooms. I remember the pink flowering dogwoods in the spring. I remember the old fashion yellow and orange daylilies in the summer. I remember the fascination of seeing red spider lilies seemingly come from nowhere in the fall underneath deciduous trees as they displayed their autumn colors. I remember Mrs. Hunt letting me smell a flower from a sweetshrub plant, which reminded me of sweet apples. The deep red blooms and the dark green leaves of this shrub complemented the white wooden wall on the east side of their home.

I remember climbing an old mulberry tree in their backyard and picking and eating the berries. I remember watching Mr. Hunt prune grapevines growing on an overhead trellis. I remember learning about the history of a ginkgo tree planted just outside a chicken pin in their side yard. I remember watching hummingbirds flying in and out of the reddish orange funnel-shaped blooms of a large trumpet vine growing on an old metal frame of a water tank, similar to the water tank on the Petticoat Junction TV Show. Now I’m dating myself.

I don’t remember the weeds, even though I know there must have been weeds in the Hunt’s landscape. I know there was the occasional pecan that didn’t fill out or that was worm infested. Those pecans were just tossed to the side. And I’m sure that the occasional plant had to be replaced. But these are not the things that made lasting impressions for me. And to be honest, I’m glad they didn’t because I might have missed the big picture.

The big picture is not the weeds, the dying petunia plant, the pecan with a worm in it, etc. Sure you will have weeds in your yard, certain plants that don’t survive, etc. We can learn from these things. But just don’t let these things become the source of great worry. In my opinion, a landscape should be a source of pleasure and a place to learn and a place to pass along lasting memories.

Besides, with all the things there are to worry about in this world (as recent days have revealed), why let your own backyard be one of them? Get the big picture?