This column byDon Engebretsonappeared in the November - December Northern Gardener . We wish Don the best in his novel adventures and give thanks him for his enlightening and entertaining chromatography column over the years .
horticulture and writing go hand in deal . Both are peaceable pursuit that gently coax creativity from the player . Whether beginning a new garden seam or a new gardening clause , the process is the same . Start with something blank . puff on preceding experience . See what happens .
Already reviewing my wind paragraph above — no different from final appraisal of plant location before digging cakehole and mystify them in the reason — I see that my pick of “ coax ” as it link up to inner creative thinking may be too genial a word . The concept of pulling tooth sometimes applies .
Don Engebretson, the renegade gardener, has retired from writing about northern gardens. We wish him well.
Whether garden or written material , an errant will may stimulate a uncomplicated pond projection to become as frustratingly elongate as an editor ’s assignment of a simple clause on how to build up a pond . At the nursery , the new nurseryman buy too many plants . At the computer , the new author uses too many wrangle .
Creativity happens only when receive . It disappears when grabbed by the throat .
A Garden Writer ’s Journey
As this is my final pillar for this laurels - come through magazine I ’m feel some atmospheric pressure . No worry , it ’s the same angst I ’ve felt groom the enormous jam and soil , then plant a $ 1,200Pinus sylvestris‘Hindu Pan ’ tree diagram in a customer ’s yard . I cover it with a two - year warranty . My sweeping baby’s room does n’t . I ’ve made an expensive trip-up if it dies .
Now safely into the clause the imperativeness is go . Northern Gardener , after all , is my home . Thirty year ago , I wrote my first gardening article and submit it to this magazine , at the meter encumbered by the clanking and confining titleMinnesota plantsman .
The editor , the grand writer Lynn Steiner , give it a stern rinse and publish it . She also encourage me to link up Garden Writers Association of America , now Garden Communicators International . I did , and through fresh tangency commence writing for many national magazines . I drop a line some books and started my mad website , the Renegade Gardener .
Renegade Gardener became a place to supplant the classic guitar music played during the intro to yet another unsufferable HGTV horticulture show with tinder rock . Or at least AC / DC .
What ’s Ahead ?
I am retiring from garden writing so as to spell fiction and nonfiction on other subject . I would be remiss if I did not bless off with two confessions : 1 ) EveryNorthern Gardenereditor through the years made my article better . 2 ) I was burned out — pulling tooth — from writing about perennials the fifth and last yr I indite the Perennial Favorites editorial for this magazine . I did the best I could . ( See routine one above . ) Once I start write about landscape painting design , I was okay again .
I would be remiss if I did not sign off with some final advice to gardener :
call back , horticulture is not tree surgery . It is mere , though not always easy . When it becomes hard it means simply that you are erupt new soil . If the newfangled ground is dense Lucius Clay , sum up compost .
You will save in the farseeing run buying the most expensive gardening shaft and equipment , particularly hoses and container . Practice your speech about these costs before question by your married person or spouse .
Newer gardener , beware of burnout . Each time of year you want to accomplish so much ! You will learn that nature provides a preordain gait . It is wise to equal it .
Veteran gardeners , untie up . stress to rekindle the veneration and pleasure with which you first eyedPotentillavarieties , Coreopsis‘Moonbeam ’ or dwarf Alberta spiff up decades ago . Now laugh as you earn , they were dreadful plants . Get thee to a nursery . This is the Golden Age ofNorthern Gardening .
in conclusion , if you make out horticulture , try writing about it . You never know where it may lead .
