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Murphy's Ten Laws of Gardening

17 years ago

MURPHY'S TEN LAWS OF GARDENING

1. Whenever you start to do something, something else must first be done.

2. If you need five garden tools, four of them will be easy to find.

Related Law: You will always find four gloves for the left hand, but none for the right.

3. The garden tool you depend on the most will always have the weakest handle.

4. Weeds multiply in direct proportion to any effort to eliminate them.

5. A hand cultivator will always find its way to the bottom of the weeding bucket.

6. The most beautiful flowers are always the hardest to grow.

Law of Inversion: The ugliest weeds will be the hardest to kill.

7. If there are many gophers, a dog will always pursue the one that is in the center of a flower bed.

8. A mower will always run out of gas at the farthest point from the work shed.

9. The plant you want the most will always be the one that costs the most.

Law of Inevitability: You will always purchase a new plant shortly before the price is reduced.

Any gardening chore will always take twice as long as first estimated.

(Compiled from Michael GarofaloÂs website Pulling Onions: The Maxims of Gardening)

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Comments (6)

FlowersForMyFarm
17 years ago
So very true. And by the time you're done with the "something else" of number one, it will be raining...
bunnycat
17 years ago
For me, all of these are very true, with just slight variations (i.e. substitute chipmunk for gopher).
Thanks for the laugh.
~Bunnycat
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sammy, someone threw a firework rocket into our garden during the New Years eve and it landed into Le Vesuve pot, burning the poor rose a bit. :) And electric shepherd is effective to prevent dogs from pooping in your garden, as once they touch it, they do not come close to it again (as it zapps quite a bit if you touch it). It is not very pretty as a fencing/hedge, as it is just a wire to which current is connected, but it prevents animal trespassing. melissa, the burn is not too bad, just some spindly twigs, but she is still small and generally on the tender side for here, so I hope for that toughness. My garden is a mess too, especially the parts that did not get weeded in the autumn, so now I have renegade strawberries and what not else all over the place and don't know where to start even. My baby plants look good though, still hard to say if I had any success with grafting tree peonies, but fingers crossed. :) Spring is a nice thought though, hopefully it will be an early and warmer one this year. :)
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I call it life! I am going to fire up the riding mower with the garden cart and use the 20-gallon battery operated sprayer on the fruit trees. It is one of the best investments for the trees I have made. Of course, have to get the mower started first! It doesn't like cold weather.
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hello all...recently i have been *clicking* on Ten's 12 members to learn more bout us. Today, Dusty was the last to post and i took a look at his name (isn't a profile or a bio...maybe statement...well whatever it is). Dusty has a neat philosophy of gardening - makes me think twice when i squirm at seeing a slug in my garden (they get BIG and FAT and slimy -- eeew). I especially like the insight about the butterflies and caterpillers (as Oprah says, ah-ha moment). At any rate - i like the idea of doing some native garden work (though i am pretty new to gardening). I also appreciate the hard work that goes into organic gardening. I know it can't all be chem free, but harm reduction is a good philosophy....So some of this made sense to me. You may agree or not - it just shows the fun diversity we have in our swap. Check it out - neat perspectives. Also - to answer I have not had a secret pal package...its on its way, i can feel it! I haven't seen a note from my recipient pal so i hope it was arrived OK. Enjoyyour weekends all!
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growlove
17 years ago
Right on, but I wouldn't give up my gardening experiences for anything. Keeps life interesting and the gives us something to look forward during the long gray days of winter. Mary
gardenfanatic2003
17 years ago
Hee hee, very cute! For me, #10 would be 3-4 times as long. I'm just slow, and inevitably law #1 kicks in, causing it to be way more time consuming!

Deanna
indyrose
17 years ago
I'd always heard the law of estimating time was to figure out how much time the task should take, double that, and move up to the next unit of measure.

For example, if a task should, take 15 minutes, double it to 30 and move up to hours... so, 30 hours...

Sounds harsh, but oh, so real...

Indyrose
guapogardener
17 years ago
1. no matter how full your garden is there will always be the plants that you must find places for because the addiction only grows over time, but not your lot.
Like the last five years that I lived in Florida. I had precious few shady places to have orchids and I filled those. 50 orchids later I then fell in love with air plants so I placed them in the orchid pots where they were very happy. I then fell in love with the idea of growing succulents in hanging containers...so more weight was added to the tree branches!

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