Gardeners are continuously experimenting and learning and hopefully gaining some wisdom from their mistakes.
The gardening mistakes I’ve made over the years basically fall into three categories: planting in the wrong lighting conditions, spacing plants improperly, and not recognizing that a plant is becoming invasive quickly enough.
When I first started gardening, I planted a lot of things in the shade that should have been in the sun, and vice versa. For example, I planted dogwood in full sun and mugho pine in full shade. Neither did well until they were transplanted to a spot with proper lighting conditions. Then they prospered.
Placing plants in the wrong spots can cause expensive problems. For example, ten years ago, we foolishly planted an apple tree right in our septic field. So far, with fingers crossed, there haven’t been any problems, but trouble is inevitable in the future.
About the same time, we planted a maple sapling too close to a mature maple. Even though my grandma warned me that they were too close and that the branches would touch some day, I couldn’t imagine that happening. These two maples are almost 50 feet apart! This year the branches of the two trees met. Compounding that mistake, we built our pond about 15 feet east of the younger tree, and in fall all the leaves end up in the pond water.
Five years ago, we planted several white pines in the backyard. Now that they are getting a little taller, I’ve realized that in a few years they will be casting shade on my vegetable garden. In addition, one of the pines is too close to the brush pile that we burn every spring and that tree gets burn damage every time.
One problem that has become serious this year is that I’ve allowed invasive reed canary grass to grow on the part of our property that is unmown. There was just a small patch about five feet in diameter for 15 years or so. I didn’t know what it was for many years, and had an emotional attachment to it because my niece just loved to play in that patch of very tall grass when she was a little girl. About three years ago I identified it as reed canary grass, but it seemed rather benign and I had those good memories of my niece. Well, this year there are patches of reed canary grass everywhere! It is completely out of control. So far, what I’ve done to control it is to cut the seed heads off before they could spread seeds even further, but I think that next year more drastic action will need to be taken. It was totally irresponsible of me to let that first patch of grass grow once I realized what it was.
Even long-time Master Gardeners can make mistakes. I hope you can learn from a few of mine and avoid making the same ones.
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