Confessions of a Hopeless Romantic

I am a hopeless romantic. I fall in love with possibilities.

Give me an empty piece of land and I see a garden in full bloom. Give me an old house and I see the finished rooms. Give me a sailboat and I'm already imagining where it might take me.

I don't see what something is. I see what it could become.

And that's what usually gets me into trouble.

This year, I grew thousands of seedlings in one-inch soil blocks. I wanted enough flowers to fill a 1,000-square-foot cutting garden.

I could already see it.

Rows of flowers stretching across the property. Delphiniums, zinnias, dahlias, cosmos, sunflowers. Armloads of blooms coming into the house. Flowers in vases everywhere.

The garden in my head was spectacular.

The garden in real life required considerably more work.

The one-inch soil blocks were easy. Bumping thousands of seedlings up into two-inch blocks was not. Getting them from those blocks into the garden was another story.

There was soil to prepare, beds to plant, plants to water, stake and harvest. And, of course, weeds.

Lots and lots of weeds.

This is generally when my pragmatic side makes an appearance. She looks around and asks,

"Did you think about how much work this was going to be?"

Well... yes.

I knew it would be a lot of work. I just got carried away anyway.

I was thinking about the flowers.

And perhaps that's the trouble with being a hopeless romantic. We fall in love with the possibility before we've fully considered the price of making it real.

So here's what to consider.

Dream first. Then count the cost.

I don't think we should start by making the dream practical. Start with the dream.

What would you love to have? What would make you excited to walk outside every morning? What would make your garden feel like your garden?

Let yourself imagine it without immediately talking yourself out of it. Then ask what that dream will require: time, money, physical effort and maintenance.

The goal isn't to shrink the dream. It's to figure out how much of it you can realistically take on.

Don't confuse space with capacity.

Just because you have room for a bigger garden doesn't mean you have the capacity to maintain one.

A 1,000-square-foot garden isn't simply 1,000 square feet of flowers. It's 1,000 square feet of watering, weeding, planting, harvesting, staking and maintaining.

Before expanding, ask yourself:

How many hours a week do I actually want to spend gardening?

Not how many hours you could spend when you're enthusiastic. Think about an ordinary week in August when it's hot, you're tired and something else needs your attention.

That number should influence the size of your garden.

Start smaller than your imagination wants to.

This may be the hardest advice for a hopeless romantic.

If you think you can handle ten beds, perhaps start with six. If you want fifty varieties of flowers, maybe start with twenty-five.

You can always add more next year. It's much harder to undo a garden once you've planted it.

And a smaller garden that you love caring for is far better than a magnificent garden you eventually resent.

Consider your body, not just your enthusiasm.

Gardening can be surprisingly physical. There is digging, hauling, bending, kneeling, carrying soil and compost, dragging hoses, staking plants, harvesting and pulling weeds.

Think about what your body can comfortably do week after week.

Good paths, reliable irrigation, mulch, raised beds, comfortable tools and thoughtful bed placement may not be the romantic part of garden planning. But they can make the romantic part possible.

Build the boring things first.

The romantic part of me wants flowers. The pragmatic part wants irrigation.

The romantic part wants beautiful beds. The pragmatic part wants good paths, mulch and tools that are easy to reach.

Unfortunately, she's usually right.

The infrastructure isn't the exciting part of the garden. But it is what makes the exciting part sustainable.

Leave yourself room for life.

Don't create a garden that only works if everything goes according to plan.

Because it won't.

You'll get sick. You'll travel. The weather will do something ridiculous. Another project will take longer than expected. You'll simply get tired.

Leave enough margin that falling behind doesn't make you feel like you've failed.

And let the first season teach you.

You may discover that you love growing flowers but hate staking them. You may discover that you adore dahlias but don't want hundreds. You may discover that your favorite part is cutting flowers for the house rather than producing flowers on an enormous scale.

That's not failure. That's information.

Your first season isn't just about growing the garden. It's about discovering what kind of gardener you actually are.

And perhaps that's the most useful thing a first garden can give you.

As for me, I got carried away.

But I'm still glad I planted it.

I confess that, despite everything I know now, I suspect I'll do it again.

I'll fall in love with another possibility. I'll imagine the finished thing before I've considered the work.

And eventually, my pragmatic side will arrive with her clipboard.

I hope I'll listen to her.

But I hope I never listen so carefully that I stop dreaming.

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