A beautiful garden doesn't begin in “dirt”

It's barely spring here, but already I'm excited over the prospect of getting out there and getting my hands dirty.
There's something about the soothing newborn green of early shoots rising up out of the cold ground after a long winter's hiatus that makes me feel almost giddy. I know that might not seem reasonable to some, but if you're a gardener you get it.


Where it began
My love of horticulture was deeply entrenched through years of watching my grandfather tending to his vast yard, planting, weeding, muttering at whatever varmint had visited the night before, all while listening to his transistor radio and cussing out the Red Sox.

I spent a whole lot of time talking his ear off and asking questions such as what he was doing with all that chicken manure from the hen house, and why his strawberries were the biggest, sweetest and most deliciousever, and just tucked the information away for when I finally awakened to the fact that gardening could be a labor of love and not a chore!
That was nearly 40 years ago and, with each passing season, I've expanded not only my plantings but my knowledge. The most important thing I learned was that the foundation – the soil – was the difference between success and failure, grand and mediocre, luxurious and sparse.


Half-hearted efforts

My first few attempts when I was a young mother gave me exactly what I put into it, which wasn't much. Ever the optimist that I'd be the exception to the rule, I didn't prepare the soil but instead just plunged those poor little plants feet first into a base that even earthworms rejected.

Needless to say, the plants rejected it, too, and all I got was a bunch of scraggly, starved -looking impersonations of petunias. After a couple of years of that, I decided if I was going to waste my money on plants at all, I had to nurture them like children.


Conquering dirt

At first, the idea of breaking up all that ground and removing boulders, weeds, etc., seemed daunting. Then lugging bag after bag of manure and peat moss and working it into the hard, lifeless mass became a challenge to conquer rather than dreary work to be finished. But little by little, the smell and texture of the earth changed and gave rise to hope. It was dark and rich, clumped lightly in my hands, and had a heady aroma that to this day makes me positively swoon!

What was once nothing more than dirt was now a source of life-giving nutrients – nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and a host of trace elements– that would take care of my babies. I was spurred on to conquer the Gardening Gods, and I have!


It doesn't stop with one

One glorious garden gave rise to two, and two to three, and three to four. Hybrid day lilies, irises and brown-eyed Susans flourish everywhere as they happily multiply and spread. The peonies and roses throw off heavenly scents as you brush by them in early summer, and delphiniums and hollyhocks and whatever annuals draw my eye that season fill in the spaces.
The vegetable garden and the earthworms that aerate the soil live happily between the perennials, with cucumber and squash vines running here and there, and the bursts of reds and yellows of ripening tomatoes add an element of surprise to garden visitors.

Over the course of the decades every available inch has been planted, dug up, redesigned, added to, divided and shared. It's a glorious thing when the gardens are in bloom and strangers stop by the side of the road to tell me how beautiful they are
But through it all, the thing that has remained the most important is the life-giving replenishing of the soil. Without it, none of the rest would be possible.


How to get there

To give your plants the best chance at being beautiful, there are some basic steps to follow:
1. First, till the soil to a depth of about 8 inches or so (the depth of most root systems), which can be achieved either with a rototiller or a pitchfork. It can be tough work, but you'll be rewarded for your efforts.
2. Work in lots (I mean LOTS) of organic matter, such as manure, peat moss and/or compost, and an all-purpose fertilizer that is high in phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium (all key ingredients for good plant growth).
3. Check the pH level of the soil with a kit that is available at any garden center. If the level is over 8.0, add lime; if it's below 6.0, add sulfur. (Both are available at garden centers.) In the mid range is where most plants will thrive.
At the beginning of each new season, add more of the good stuff and, over time, your "dirt" will have become a soil that will be the envy of your friends and luxury living for the earthworms.