Five Types of Organic Gardeners; Which Kind of Gardener Are You?

Every organic gardener develops a particular gardening style that suits his climate, landscape, and taste. However, sometimes a bit of tweaking is necessary to bring that style in line with the tenets of a healthy garden.

Pruning Too Much

The gardener who loves a formal garden may try to achieve this look by putting his pruning shears into overdrive. Flowing forsythia are hacked into submission. Trees are topped when they strain too vigorously for the sun. Every shrub is trimmed and pruned into balls, cubes, or rectangles, resulting in a fussy look at odds with nature.

Pruning is necessary in the organic garden to remove old or weak branches, and to increase sunlight and air circulation in plants. In this way, pruning increases the vigor and beauty of shrubs and trees. Topping trees creates several weak leaders, giving a witch’s broom effect. Gardeners who want a formal garden in the landscape can plant shrubs like boxwood, or they can plant a knot garden featuring interlocking circles or squares.

Weekend Weed Warrior

The weekend weed warrior barely gives the garden a thought during the workweek. However, when a fair weather weekend arrives, this gardener spends every minute of daylight stooped over in the garden, digging, pulling weeds, and hauling mulch. The next day, the gardener is lucky if she can rise to a standing position due to the back pain.

Spending five minutes a day in the garden will save hours on the weekend. Pulling a few weeds on the way to the mailbox each day prevents plants from establishing a deep root system, making weeding an easy rather than a backbreaking chore. If the gardener adds the application of a bag of mulch to this quick daily weed check, the garden will be tidy by Saturday.

Summer Garden Absentee

When early spring arrives, the fair-weather gardener tends his plot carefully, preventing insect pest attacks, irrigating thoughtfully, and improving the soil. By the time the dog days of summer arrive, the same gardener gazes out the window at the neglected landscape with reptilian indifference.

It’s common for gardeners to lose their enthusiasm when temperatures soar into the 90’s and above, but continuing to care for the garden ensures that the beauty and harvest will extend through fall. Deadheading annuals, treating mildew and fungal diseases, and watering plants during dry spells are minimal requirements for summer months.

Plant Collector Extraordinaire

There are so many exciting new plant cultivars introduced each year, it’s understandable that some gardeners’ eyes are bigger than their landscapes. Planting too many plant varieties leads to a visually unpleasing hodgepodge in the landscape.

Organic gardeners can experience aesthetic and horticultural success by choosing a few varieties suited to the region, and planting them in repeating groups of three or five. This lends an element of continuity that guides the eye across the garden.

Same Vegetable Garden Every Year

Many gardeners plant the same crops repeatedly, especially vegetable garden favorites like tomatoes and cucumbers. These gardeners experience dwindling success as pests and diseases build up in the soil from one season to the next.

No one wants to get between an organic gardener and her beloved vegetable garden favorites, but gardeners must practice crop rotation if they want to enjoy a robust garden with the same varieties each year. Depending on the severity of the pest problems and the size of the garden, gardeners should strive to wait at least three years before growing a crop in the same site.