by Jack McKinnon

My friend Dr. Eric Shapira and I have been working with seniors for many years now. Shapira, a gerontologist, helps them to grow older with grace and dignity while I help them to garden without some of the problems that come with getting older. It has been a good thing. Shapira has written a new book, A New Wrinkle: What I Learned from Older People Who Never Acted Their Age. I recommend this book to everybody who is getting older. Have your bookstore order it for you. This month’s tips will focus on ways we can continue to garden no matter how old we are. After all, to grow a garden is to fully embrace life.

Here are the tips.

1. Make sure your paths are safe. Ask for help if you need to. Get all the trip hazards out or smoothed over.

2. Install seats and rails in your garden.

3. Have raised beds put in so you don’t have to bend over so far.

4. Put pots on benches to bring the flowers up to a height where you can work on them.

5. Get a light, flexible hose and an easy-to-use water wand.

6. This month, plant Chinese cabbage, Swiss chard, Brussels sprout plants, spinach, turnips, onion seeds, leeks, lettuce, artichoke rootstock, fava beans, collards, garlic  sets and peas.

7. Pansies, primroses and cyclamen are arriving in the nurseries. Johnny-jump-ups are wonderful in pots and along borders. Sold in six-packs, they are really nice to cheer up a rainy garden. They are easy to plant; just wiggle them out of the six-pack and put them in the soil. You don’t need to rough up the roots.

8. Part of gardening is decorating your house and front porch. I like to get gourds and pumpkins and set them in a nice cluster with some corn stalks on the front porch.

9. If a job seems too big to do, divide it into as many little jobs as needed to get it done.

10. My grandmother lived to be well over 90 and was the best African violet grower I have ever known. She had a gardener mow, blow and go in the yard, but nobody touched her African violets. We do what we can and take pride in it. This is how gardening keeps us going.

Good Gardening!

Jack McKinnon worked in Sunset’s gardens for 12 years and is now a garden coach. He can be reached at 650-879-3261, on his cell phone at 650-455-0687, or by e-mail at jack@jackthegardencoach.com.