How much of a down-to-earth, garden-variety gardener are you? Do you do things horticulturally by the efficiency-oriented book, or follow a meandering path of gardening mostly for pleasure?

I do a bit of both – trained in horticultural science but raised by older gardeners who let a lot of rules slide, yet still had beautiful, productive, relaxing gardens.

A few examples may help folks on the fence adjust their approach. On one hand, I have made beautiful compost in three weeks flat by mixing brown and green stuff, adding nitrogen, and regularly turning and aerating. But my preferred system is just a homemade bin where I toss whatever will decompose on top and dig it out of the bottom – and it works just fine.

This old Navy veteran makes his bed every single morning to help me feel like I have a grip on things, but I rarely roll up the hose (sometimes drink from it) and know how many bags of mulch will fit into the back of my Jeep, which has been cleaned out several times with a leaf blower. I use mostly hand tools and make my own tea in the sunshine.

I do consulting work with professional turf managers and often lecture at their meetings; I appreciate the effort and skill it takes to have a perfect lawn, the attention to detail and pride in good workmanship. But I personally don’t conform to Yard of the Month standards – I don’t even have a lawn. In fact, I helped my son convert his into a still-neat, mow-what-grows clover and low-growing wildflower meadow. It still performs the same basic functions as a manicured lawn: providing winter-hungry bees and butterflies with food, plus a winter and spring skipping path for my granddaughter.

I understand correct pruning techniques and wound physiology and have helped teach them at Mississippi State University. But I know it is perfectly okay to pollard crape myrtles into stems with big knobs on the ends, just like they do in England and Japan. Southern Living doesn’t dictate my pruning style.

This DIGr – Determined Independent Gardener – grows a hodgepodge of utterly dependable heirlooms alongside proven, low-maintenance shrubs, flowers, and potted plants, so there is something in bloom every single week of the year. No need to fret over winter freezes or summer droughts. No more coddling lilacs, fuchsias, lavender, cherries, or bluebonnets in Mississippi, whose climate is vastly different from what these plants prefer.

I do, however, go to great lengths to care for potted tropical plants, like my collection of unusual, no-fuss sansevierias. Though I love how my sweetheart recently painted some of my big outdoor pots like Easter eggs, I see anything that holds soil and has a hole in the bottom as a potential plant container. Junk can be recycled as yard art.

I mash broccoli-eating caterpillars but encourage butterflies, ignore out-of-the-way wasp nests, and relocate stranded worms from hot sidewalks. My arms, constantly scratched from not putting on proper pruning attire, are not pretty. I have looked down at my hands during a garden club talk, realized my fingernails were crusted with dirt, and thought it was honorable.

In short, life is too short to keep headbanging over unnecessary details or trying to overcome centuries of evidence that some plants and chores are not worth the effort. My horticulture days are fading, and I’ve become just an old gardener, relaxing into and embracing the lower-stress style of my grandmother’s sane gardening.

Stop by for some homemade sun tea.

Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to [email protected].

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