June 24th, 2007 TWEAKING THE GARDEN
Picture this; you are in your yard, surveying your superb landscaping efforts when you notice a plant that, while it is nice, could look better. Maybe the plant and Mother Nature are having a bit of a disagreement, so the plant is sulking a bit. What to do? Tweak it! Using your trusty snips, re-shape it every so slightly. Remove a wayward stem or flowerhead that is growing in a different direction than the rest of the plant.
Suppose you’ve just trimmed your shrubs. They look great, but, on closer inspection you see all these little leafless sticks on the shrub. Cut the sticks off to just barely above the next leaf and you’ve tweaked your shrubs.
Then there’s that rock you put in the garden. You really liked the look of it when you brought it home, but somehow it is not looking as great as you thought it would. Tweak it! Turn it around, upside down, angle it or do all three and you’ll be amazed at how much better it looks.
How about those patio pots you have? (Pardon me, container gardens.) Not quite as nice now as when you first planted them? Try taking a plant out, or adding a plant, or substituting old plants for new, or just giving all the plants a little trim. You could even try moving the container to a different spot. Tweaked again!
Do you have an annoying gap in your flowerbed? You could add another plant, or for more visual interest, a rock or some garden art. Tweaked!
Speaking of garden art, don’t be afraid to move those around your gardens throughout the growing season. We have a lot of garden art here. Some of it I can’t move, and, some of it I shouldn’t move, but when the urge to tweak becomes overwhelming, very little is safe from me and my addiction. Try it and you will be surprised at how a bit of shuffling things about (tweaking) can refresh a view.
Are there flowers growing beside one another and the colour combination is good, but not great? Move one of them and fill in the space with a more complimentary plant and guess what? You have just tweaked your flower bed.
The patio furniture is perhaps the only thing I keep tweaking that I shouldn’t. Maybe it’s not the only thing, but rather, the main thing. I decide I don’t care for the layout, change it all around, then put it all back to where it was when I started. I should know that I’ve already tweaked the layout as much as I possibly can. I already have the furniture positioned to take best advantage of the views, and to offer the greatest degree of privacy. I knew that our first summer here, but the need to tweak the patio overwhelms me at least once every year. The moral of that lesson is: learn when enough is enough. Someday I may learn that lesson. Until then – Happy tweaking everybody!
