You desperately need a trip to Annie's! 2 acres of unusual plants and California natives. It will spur your creative juices, I promise.

This year her plants are coming to Southern California nurseries.

If there's anything you see on her website you'd like, I can pick it up and ship it to you a lot cheaper.

I bought a baby Selago Serrata last spring. It' should bloom this year and I can hardly wait. So far it's been the hardiest plant in may garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: Selago serrata

Debbie,

It's probably just a case of after-the-holidays- blahs. It will pass. :-)

Have you thought about adding a new, cute birdhouse, or perhaps a new trellis to your garden? Maybe a relaxing garden bench, with comfy pillows, to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labors. Sometimes just a little something that's new can jump start an interest.

Hang in there, this will pass. :-)

Marilyn

I've had the same nagging "fear" Debbie, doubtless for different reasons. Suddenly last week my interest began to return.

I think bottom line is that (to paraphrase Mr. O'Hara in Gone With the Wind)
it'll come to you (again) this love of gardening,
if you've got a drop of gardener in you.

Relax and enjoy whatever else holds your interest at the moment.

Patti

Try and recall those wonderful and exciting feelings you have (as a gardener) when spring is nearing and there are emerging perennials and reseeds galore and the air is clean and fresh and you just want to have lots and lots of color with all that beautiful sunshine and blue skies and, and ... oh heck, you WON'T lose your love of gardening... maybe you are just a bit tired.. we all get like that..

Keep us posted -

Carrie

Debbie, maybe you are just content with your garden?
Either that or this is a very early April fools joke?

Start a few seeds. There is nothing like starting a few seeds to bring around some garden fever!!

GGG

Maybe it's just time for you to expand your horizons. Maybe a public garden project? Or a group of kids who need to learn about gardening to carry on the traditions? Perhaps you need to choose a specialty niche for yourself and get into competitions? A new avenue may give your love a new lift. I doubt that it's just gone. Maybe just bored?

MeMo

I agree with the whole after-holiday-blahs theory-I have been going through the same thing :) I mean, I don't even have spring fever yet...

Debbie, I've been feeling the same way. My garden really took a back seat during the summer when mom was passing. By the time I felt interested in anything again, the Fall was here. Instead of starting on the front landscaping like I should have, I turned my attention to the house. We did a living room overhaul and are about to start the kitchen. I keep feeling an underpinning of guilt about the neglected garden. I'm hoping that Spring will jar my interest again.

Perhaps it's healthy to take a break from our hobbies. When we revisit them (which I'm sure we both will), we can do so with a refreshed eye.

Debbie, been there, done that! My interest in gardening also comes and goes according to the seasons. For those of us in climates where gardening is possible year round, I think this is a common trait. I usually loose most of my interest at Summer time, when heat strikes. All I want to do is retreat into the house and/or go to the beach. OK, and come into this forum to check out all these lush blooming gardens from the northeners who were sunk in snow while I was out gardening...

I have come to accept that Summer is simply not a good season of the year to garden here, due to the heat and drought, so I'm determined not to worry about it. I also usually feel kind of blah in January, quite possibly because I always overwork myself over the holidays, usually have a cold to start the year (this one has been no exception) and overall I find it too cold to be out. I also have other hobbies, so these fill up the space while I wait for the gardening bug to strike again.

Also, I can relate to the nursery_seen_this_before_have_that_no_longer_interested syndrome. It's the same here. I have about 6 gardening centres within a 15 minutes drive from my house and, with very few exceptions, once you have seen one, you have seen all. They buy bulk from the same wholesale retailers, so their selection is just about the same. That's fine for most of the people, who can't tell a petunia from a holly, but once you get a bit more serious it's despairing.

I also know that my sap rises likes the plants' in Spring. Once the days start to grow longer and that smell of Spring starts hovering in the air, I know I'll be out with the first rays of sunshine. Then I go into shutdown mode once Summer hits, sometime during June, and only venture out again come September, ready to enjoy the Fall colors. That's how it is for me and I'm glad I have come to realize that so as not to stress over it. Life is too complicated otherwise. :-)

Eduarda

I used to live in California, and one problem (really!) is that there is no "winter" when you are forced to rest. So sure, you can get sick of it. Your interest will return, you just need a break. I usually feel like that at the end of summer because I'm just tired of it! I take a break for a few weeks, do no gardening, and then the gardening bug bites back later. Here we have nice long winters when I can pursue other hobbies, so when spring comes I am ready to go. Give it a rest, you deserve it, your interest will return.

Hey, look! I got Steven to post : )

GGG, no joke, and no I am not satisfied.

This is not new to this season. It has been going on at least six months now. The fall season, was ho hum. I don't even go outside everyday anymore. It is feeling more like needing to vacuum and I do not like vacuuming.

Maybe I just need a year to lie fallow. There is plenty out there that needs time to grow. It is interesting I said I have been gardening ten years. That is how long I have been working on my side garden. The back garden was going well before then, and I really have been gardening as much as location and life's story allow since I was young. So that must say something about how much I like this particular area.

I have just started some radical allergy treatments that will most likely continue for a year or so, so maybe time to just watch the garden grow and focus on me a bit.

Debbie,

My friend and I have jokingly said we suffer ennui from time to time. Ennui isn't boredom or flightiness, in our opinion, but a sort of blah feeling that can linger for days or weeks. Kidding aside, it's difficult to talk about because it's hard to describe. Not one of the responses here has been harsh or judgemental. Rather, each one seems to understand and want to offer support. Perhaps because we've all felt this way. I love this forum. Best wishes to you.

Debbie, I can really relate to your 'gardening ennui'. For the first couple of years I was out in the garden almost every day. Now that there's just a few spots to fill, I'm reduced to fighting aphids/scale/slugs, summer watering, and the dreaded Dead Leaf winter cleanup. It isn't as exciting as it was to put in a new bed and watch it come together in a symphony of color and texture, replacing an overgrowth of icky weeds. Lately I've gone weeks without filling up the greens cart for city composting, so I know I've really slacked off.

But I still love my garden. Maybe it's just a winter-tired thing, with the shorter days and bouts of gray cloudy skies?

debbieca-I stop in on this forum from time to time and this morning, your posting touched home. I find I tend to go "whole hog" learning something in particular and once I've tackled it, my interest wanes. At this time, I'm not as interested in gardening as I was. So, I'm into growing a few different gourd varieties now and decorating them. I figure I'll touch up my garden this year and enjoy it, but I don't have that urge to grow 100 plants from seed like I have in the past, at this time of year. I think I'll find a new plant here and there that interests me and move on to another hobby now such as growing a small herb garden and learning how to use the herbs in cooking. I'd always been into growing flowering plants for the most part, in the past. Good luck to you!

DebbieCA -

I follow a similar pattern in my interests. It is time to let your garden take a back seat to other interests for a while. My recommendation is that you reduce your garden efforts for a while, maybe a year or two or three. Shift into minimum maintenance mode. Cut back the size and intensity of the garden, hire gardening help, what ever it takes. Meanwhile, find some other area to get excited about. Take up knitting, woodworking, rock climbing, scuba, ballroom dance, oil painting, learn to play a musical instrument -- or take up a course of study at your local community college -- history, a language, geology, astronomy. It should be something completely different both from gardening and from your previous interests. Immerse yourself in it.

I predict that in time you will come back to the garden refreshed and re-energized, and will embrace it with the zest you have lost.

Rosefolly (who cycles back and forth between gardening and several other interests)

I can feel your pain of wondering what to do with gardening this year. I am ready for the nice weather but really don't know what I want in my gardens. I think part of this is we are expecting number 3 in August and I know that it will be tough to garden, plus will have a c-section so no gardening for 6 weeks. But the girls love the flowers and the veggie garden and being outside so will work on it with them.

Stacie

I felt the same a couple years ago. My garden was designed and pretty much filled in and all I had to do was maintenance and maybe plug in something new where a plant didn't make it thru the year. I was at the point where rels and friends came in the spring and took van and truckloads of plants away and when you looked in the garden, you couldn't tell anyone had taken a thing.

I thought that I could regain the feeling by making more garden, so ripped out the fence on a pasture field and made a new 200 by 100 foot garden to start anew... well, one person can only keep up with so much garden! That was a mistake. I dug up the plants worth saving and gave them away and refenced it for the cows. And sold the farm. moved to a new place- Italy, to start a new garden. But the culture shock was too great and I moved back and started a new garden a mile west of my old one.

I'm re-invigorated and this garden will probably never let me lose that excitement... however it only took 15 years to lose it at the former garden. And that coincided with early 40's and the whole Change of Life thing that i discovered hits men too!

I don't advocate selling and moving, but it worked for me.

... Don

I think I went through an opposite experience. In 2005 I was just to the point of having my yard/gardens complete and pretty much just needing maintenance. I loved eyeing the shrubs or roses and just removing an unruly branch here and there, walking around with my pruners and deadheading. But then Hurricane Katrina hit and I lost it all, and moved to another state and zone. Now I have started anew, and really, being 23 yrs older, I was very angry having to do that. I'm starting to get a little bit more enthused but I've got a long way to go. If you are inclined, perhaps put in some hardscape, a little patio, arbor or pergola or a little brick courtyard area or fountain, birdbath, or feeders. Then just enjoy the wildlife, views, and maybe a cup of coffee or tea. Gardening is not just about the plants. Best regards!

Thanks all for your kind encouragement. It will be interesting to see where this year heads. Thanks, Debbie

Dear Debbie ~ I hope your allergy treatments go smoothly for you. Maybe that's part of why you are feeling the way you do right now. Maybe you do need to step back and take a break, just for yourself, like you said. Life brings us changes, and hopefully we can adjust, learn and move along.

I have my days where gardening gets to me and other days it is a real joy and thrill. I'm not getting any younger though and am realizing that the more I do, the more work there is. We start out with little plots of this and that and before we know it, we've created something that needs regular work. Living here, gardening is a 365 day a year event and sometimes it is easy to get burned out on it. I'm trying to get things done now while we are having milder weather, so that I really can take some sort of break during the hot, humid summer weather and hopefully we will not have any hurricanes.

Louisianagal ~ My heart goes out to you for having lost your gardens with Katrina. We went through Frances, Jeanne and then Wilma and I hope we never have to go through bad hurricanes again. We didn't lose our gardens but we did have damage to buildings, roofing blown off, fencing down, lost 3-4 trees pine trees, plus most of a melalauca tree that was beautiful. Unfortunately, we don't get any younger and to go out and have to start all over again, because of your love of gardening, would be hard to do being older.

Gardening just doesn't happen. It is a lot of hard work, determination, love, blood, sweat and tears. These days, I have to ask DH for more help than I used to, for heavier things. He's not into gardening but he does cut tree limbs, helps with whatever project I might need him for and creates arbors, etc.

Gardening does something for my spirit, heart and soul. It also is great exercise. It gives one a chance to be outdoors, living in glorious moments, surrounded by color, texture and scents.

Just enjoy each day Debbie and don't feel guilty about losing your interest for now. Tomorrow is yet another day and who knows what might spark your interest then. I have enjoyed visiting your gardens via the web.

Hugs ~ FlowerLady

I think everyone goes through stages as well as season in a garden. For me, I was in a constant "growing" phase for about 17 years always trying new stuff and new plants and expanding the garden and shrinking grass. It was exciting.

Then I went through a painful separation and divorce. I kept the house & garden, but I found that maintaining all the stuff I had built with no help was overwhelming. So I started to shrink the garden back and re-planted grass in some of the outlying beds that were getting too weedy and overgrown because I didn't have the time to take care of them. So the lawn area expanded & I hired a lawn service for that part... I turned my attention to playing music for a while and doing yoga and it seemed I had no time for gardening like I used to. At the low point I was thinking of ripping out half my roses... (I have over 130 varieties...)

Gradually my interest is returning, though I still keep an eye on maintenance and what's reasonable given my busy schedule. This fall I had a tree taken down (which my ex-husband wanted to keep but I had wanted to get rid of it for a long time), and that opened up a lot of sunshine and a new area to plant this spring that I am excited about. I am going to chose more low-maintenance plants this time than perhaps I would have in the past, but I enjoy just thinking about what to plant and how it will look and what care it will take. Sometimes doing just one thing can seem like a big difference and open up a lot of possibilities!

Dear Lori ~ I am sorry for what you have gone through. I do hope you see better days ahead. A new gardens sounds like a fun and wonderful idea, new beginnings in the coming spring. Wow, you have so many different roses. I only have about 30 these days and I think that is a lot. Of course, I would love to have a lot more, but I'm running out of room, plus I don't want to grow more than I can handle. Enjoy your new garden and your older gardens this coming spring.

FlowerLady

FlowerLady,
Thanks for your supportive words! That's very kind of you. Sometimes I think I have more roses than I can handle, but I can't give them up! At least for the new area I will plant lower maintenance shrubs. I am learning to be less of a perfectionist with what is left too.

Here is a link to my garden, which isn't just roses but a cottagey garden with lots of different plants:

Here is a link that might be useful: Lori's Rose Garden

Lori ~ I just love your gardens. I would love to walk around and take it all in, then sit on a bench soaking up the fragrances and the peaceful feeling that goes along with what you have created. Enjoy your bit of paradise, it is beautiful.

FlowerLady

Hi Debbie!
Talk about the blahs... I've had 'em, that's for sure. I think mine are starting to pass a little. But I've been having the same problems as you. I can go into a garden center and leave with nothing. Half the time I have no urge to tinker in the garden. I mean, I haven't been on these forums since April, May?... I think it's a combination of working from home, not really having room for new plants, and the garden is almost on auto pilot. It basically takes care of itself. But it sure would look nicer if I paid it some attention...

I hope we both pull out of this funk! It's encouraging to see I'm not the only one... :)

Hugs,
Nicki

Lori elf,

Looking at your garden pics I see that you've said you've put up an electric fence to keep out your biggest pest- deer.

I just planted a few thousand tulips in my new garden this past fall with the sinking feeling of it becoming a Deer Dessert Buffet.

I was thinking of an electric fence to keep them away... they have plenty to eat in the forest and pasture fields.

What's the scoop on your effort and has it worked?

... Don

Hi Ya, Nicki! Welcome back! Boy, I know what you mean about the garden center thing. I was in Lowes a couple days ago and they had the hardenbergia I had planned to replace the fern I pulled out last summer and I just looked and said, eh, I don't know. Then I saw lemon thyme which I love and need since mine died, and lavender hidcote, which I need same reason, and thought oh well, maybe later.
I am sticking with cottage gardeners though, if anyone will get us back in it's these guys.

Debbie and Nicki, you just need to let your sap rise, like the plants! No fear, it will. You both have the gardening bug. I go through times of less interest in the garden as well. Usually in January, our coldest month, then again in the July/August timeframe. I have low blood pressure and I simply can't cope with gardening in the heat. I have been wondering - are you both in perfect health? Sometimes our lack of physical stamina, due to some lurking health problem, does affect our mind as well. I'm thinking obvious things like anemia, but also stuff like tyroid problems, which can go undiscovered for years and be mistaken for something else. Just a thought, please make sure your health is good and is not affecting your eagerness for life in general.

Eduarda

Debbie-I still love to walk around my garden but it looks so terrible now. The frost did a number to my California native plants. But hang in there..spring is around the corner. I am into reading my gardening books now.
Gigi

I'd like to second the frost thing. I thought I had gotten off scott-free, but at the last possible moment the frost nabbed some very large and expensive shrubs in my backyard, and the peas in my potager are completely shriveled. Everything looks so dispirited and forlorn. So I'm hanging around GW right now to have a virtual garden experience, since my own is so disheartening.

Actually the only things the frost got here were houseplants outside in pots. I did pretend the leonourus was dead as an excuse to get it out of here. It drooped in heat and crisped up in frost and looked ratty in between.

Yes, I am sure health is some of it. Especially in fall I am so ill I can rarely go out into the dirty harvest air. Thus, my new allergy treaments. Dh has also been sick a year and a half, since he got West Nile Fever. Work is some of it as well, as I doubled my work load this past year.

But I think the main thing is twofold, one which sowngrow and rosefolly agreed above, that I jump into new things full force and then move on once I am saturated.
The other is the frustration of feeling like I am not getting anywhere. I did not lose plants to the freeze, because I know it freezes here and do not go in for the plants that freeze. Most of our nurseries here don't get that. I did however, lose quite a bit this summer when I was gone twelve days during a spell of 107 degrees with 70% humidity, twice our norm. I left a 12 year old in charge of my garden as no one was predicting the extreme weather. Finding things I like that are available and can take both heat and cold is challenging.

I just had a nice month off teaching and I need to get some bareroot stuff in so I am thinking a lot about what to do. I need to replace a lilac that died unexplainably, and so far the only bareroot shrubs available are more lilacs. I love them in spite of their 11 months of dullness, so it will probably be more lilacs. And so forth, but when will everything all be grown up at once?

(((Debbie))) How are the allergy treatments going? Can you tell a difference yet? So sorry to hear about your DH being sick with the West Nile fever and hope he is well soon. May he gain strength with each new day. May you also be strengthened as you have a double work load.

I wish I could grow lilac down here. Your gardens are always so lovely to look at, and once spring comes they will be lovely once again.

It is cold here this morning, well cold for us, 50 and feels like 42. Yesterday was perfectly gorgeous, cool, very windy, with the sun shining. I hand watered and really enjoyed just being home, loving and appreciating it and our gardens.

Be well. It sounds like you are out working in your gardens again and pretty soon your work will be rewarded with spring blooms.

FlowerLady

The city does a beautiful job of landscaping the medians in my neighborhood, and I noticed this past weekend that their daffodils have sprouted. I couldn't help but smile at the sight of those shoots! They were probably up 3 inches or so, so spring is on its way.

Debbie, I bet as soon as your spring flowers burst into bloom your interest will be rekindled.

Marilyn

Don,
Yes, that electric fence is to keep the deer out, and it works very well as long as I keep the baits fresh with deer lure and the fence maintained. The posts can bend or snap (my lawn mower guy is bad about them and runs into them too often) and I've had deer come crashing through on occasions when they couldn't see or smell the fence so I put up some orange reflective tape in spots where I had trouble. The length/size of the area covered depends on how strong a shocker you get. I upgraded from a battery-powered unit to a plug-in one that is more reliable and stronger. Try Fi-shock SS-10 http://electric-deer-fence.com/electricdeerfences/electricfencechargers/acpowered.htm#ss10

Debbie,
I can relate to allergy problems too, that slows me down sometimes. In the humid times of summer the mosquitoes and gnats can get so bad where I live that you can't be in the garden without dousing yourself with OFF from head to socks, so I avoid gardening during certain times of the year.

Debbie-I completely understand the frustration of "feeling like you're not getting anywhere." I have been working on my flowerbeds for 10 years and I thought each year they'd look better, but last year we had a drought and I'd also moved a few plants the fall before. My garden didn't look better than the year before. But, I can say one thing about my garden. I'm the pickiest person who looks at it. And the one time it looks the most beautiful is now as I look back on my garden photos! My garden (of last summer) looks amazing this time of year! This is always the time of year I'm the grumpiest. As soon as the sun shines more and I can get outdoors, my spirits lift and if I go ahead and think about starting new seeds or maybe adding a few more herbs or different gourds to this year's selection...then, it's "there I go again!"
Robin

Maybe we should all go to Darfur for a season..see what we could grow.

Unfortunately, I know exactly how you feel. I usually always work in my garden, plant new things, collect containers for winter sowing, sow tons of seeds in the winter, plant my bulbs, mulch, compost,propagate, you name it.....

I now have 3 grocery bags full of great seeds, a large laundry basket full of bulbs, and more mulch and compost than I can shake a stick at, but I have no DESIRE!

I consider myself lucky because my gardens were not destroyed by flood waters after Hurricane Katrina, but it was so overgrown (we were gone for 9 months) that we had to cut everything way back, or just pull it out. I finally got it to where I was happy with it - I would go out every day and find old favorites that I had forgotten about and presummed dead that would stick there heads out to say hello. Then we had a sewerage break on the property. Guess where the main sewerage line was!?!?!? I was able to transplant a huge butterfly iris and a mexican bush sage, but a lot of things were taken out by a back hoe - including my driveway (sigh). I haven't been out there since. The weeds are astonishing and they seem to laugh at round-up. I finally mustered up the spirit to dig out a bunch of plants yesterday and I sprayed some weed killer. I'm going to try to just wipe the slate clean and start over, rather than try to work around the plants that are there. Maybe the excitement of change will get me back into the spirit of gardening. Maybe I'll just throw my bags of seeds all over the ground and be the crazy meadow lady of the neighborhood :)
Annie

lol wendy2shoes-I bet the soil is better in Darfur than the clay here in N. Texas, there's probably more rain, fewer grasshoppers and fire ants we've got here too.

Robin ~ Bless your heart. I'm glad you didn't lose to Hurricane Katrina. Even now, nature is showing you her glorious bits that are survivors and you are being inspired to just fling your bag of seeds and become 'meadow lady' of your neighborhood. I think that's great! Whatever you do, your gardens will be lovely once again, as there is a lovely garden spirit in you.

FlowerLady

DebbieCA - I am also formerly from California, transplanted to upstate NY. I used to dread having to water all winter; there was just no break such as we have now with a real winter.

Hang in there and let your body recover and adjust, and for heaven's sake, don't feel guilty.

Carol

I doubt it is over. You posted here so obviously you are still interested in it. Everyone gets the blahs now and then. Wait until you see the gardens in bloom! You will get inspired again.

Debbie,
Hang in there. I thought I was losing interest also. However, my daughter is getting married in April and I will be hosting a number of outdoor parties. I immediately got charged up about getting back in the garden and sprucing things up. Maybe you can plan an outdoor garden party??? The idea of people roaming around my garden was great incentive to get my hands back in the dirt. Good luck!
Kelly

kelly - what a FANTASTIC idea!!! My DHs birthday is mid-June, which is when a lot of things begin to 'pop' here in Kansas. An outdoor party might be just the incentive I need to get my tail OFF the couch and OUT of the house (although that's completely out of the question this week, given our temps - YUCK).

My gosh - I'm gonna need more seeds (for WSing) to get ready!!

Thank you so much - an outdoor party sounds like just what the doctor ordered!!

Ilsa

Ilsa,
Here in Southern California, I have been lucky enough to get back outside and start priming the garden. My garden is not very big, but it is my sanctuary. And the idea of anybody seeing it in the shape it was in, in December and January, got me off the couch! I am sprucing up beds I haven't touched for a couple years. I am just going section-by-section and having a ball. I am so glad I found you guys!!! Your posts are very inspiring! Take care!
Kelly

Debbie, I was wondering if your interest in gardening had revived. I see you posting, so I'm reasonably sure that you still hope it will. Sometimes a big change really stimulates one's interest. We had several trees removed from out back yard a few weeks ago, and I am energized. Even the chore of raking the leaves was appealing. We're planning where to put the vegetable bed now that we have a sunny spot, though unfortunately on a slope. Oh well. And I never even pruned my fence roses this winter because I could not get the enthusiasm going for that chore! Now I'm ready to tackle it after all.

Think what might do this for you. Paint a garden shed, take out an overgrown shrub, buy a new bench for reading under a tree, add a path. Making a change can restore your interest in something that has grown stale and wearisome.

Rosefolly

Hi Rosefolly, Yes, I am hoping the excitement will come back. I am working on things now, because there are those two or three windows each year when things must be done or live with the consequences, but it all feels like needing to vacuum. If you could see my floors, you would know what that means : ) Last year this time I had over 30 kinds of things blooming and this year only a half dozen. That is discouraging.
Yes, I know it would help to jump into something, but the plans all involve my sweetie who has not been well enough to do anything for nearly two years now.

Debbie, if you are dealing with an illness with a loved one, I'm not at all surprised you are having difficulty summoning energy to work in your garden. Yes, such work can be a refuge, but only if it restores you, not if it saps you.

I remember a thread on the Rose forum a few months after 9-11. About half the writers said that they fled to their gardens to renew their hope, while the other half found their formerly beloved gardens to be a pointless waste of time and energy.

Rosefolly

this post had me in tears when i read it earlier. I am that way about my quilting, absolutely NO desire. So I do know the feeling you get with your gardens. However, my gardens are a totally different story. I WANT to get out there sooooo badly. for the last hmm, six years, I have not been able to physically get the work done. I've finally been diagnosed with MS (18 mos ago), have had two surgeries on my neck do to herniated disks that compressed my spinal cord, and am this year FINALLY getting the energy up to get out there again.

I'm starting with a clean slate, which is nice in many ways, but so daunting in other ways. I miss all my flowers so much though, that I will find a way, some way, to get them back again.

I hope that you also find the desire to garden soon, the maintenance is enough to drive you bonkers when you don't want to be out there, but left alone, it's going to be horrendous to get motivated again. it takes no time for the weeds to notice lack of interest, and they take over like crazy then.

wishing you all best of luck!

sally

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