Gardening Must Do's and Must Don'ts

Here are some things I have learned over the years that are really important to know when you are a home gardener. Just thought you could use the information, as it has been really hard-earned for me.

• Always, ALWAYS, squish up your gardening gloves clear out to the tips of the fingers before you put them on your hands. This is to kill any spider that may have found your glove a happy home.
• Do not plant roses near your air conditioning unit or anything else that may need maintenance at any time of the year, because repairmen will charge you extra and curse in your yard if you do.
• Do not plant wisteria near your house or porch or trees or bushes or wimpy trellis or retaining walls or shed or tree house or playset. It will take over. It will overcome.
• Better yet, do not plant wisteria. Just don't.
• Remember that any convenience the automatic sprinklers give you will be offset by lots of time repairing heads that get poked out by aeration guys and snow blowers and just by random acts of God. It will be a love/hate relationship.
• Do check your sprinklers once in a while, because you never know when that random act of God will strike, and if your sprinklers only come on at night, you will have a devil of a time knowing that there is a problem. At least until your neighbor calls and tells you there's a problem, because his garden is being washed out at night, every night, and has been over the course of the last month.
• Do mutter to yourself when you lift off a lid to a sprinkler control box or water meter, "There might be black widows in the perfect, dark, little square holes on the back of this horribly designed lid." It makes it easier to scream, throw the lid, and run, if you are well-prepared first. And just to make you that much more prepared for anything - though it hasn't happened to me, it has happened up the hill a mile or so - rattle snakes in the water meter pits. Gives new meaning to the term 'pit vipers'. Yeah, I know. 
• Hire help for the sprinkler maintenance from now on.
• Do enjoy the gardening catalogs. 
• Don't think anything you grow will look anything like the gardening catalogs. Remember, they have staff horticulturalists and photo-shoppers making theirs look good. You have, well, you.
• Plants that people give away for free from their garden are going to overtake yours, just like they did the giver's. And that is why they are free.
• Free plants you should not ever accept: iris, daisies, chamomile, horseradish, wisteria, parsley, oregano, horsetail, bamboo, sunflower, aspen trees, and holly hocks. Or anything thistle looking (and not because of the thorns, but because of the propensity of seeds!). If you do want some of these plants, however, let me know. I can get you some for free!
• Do not put black thistle into a bird feeder or allow your neighbors within 30 miles to put black thistle into a bird feeder, unless all you want to grow in your yard is black thistle.
• Do wear a belt and long shirt when gardening. Gardeners get a 'gardener's tan' about the same place plumbers have exposed skin and the neighbors don't appreciate gardener's tans, although the hub might appreciate it.
• Prune like you mean it. Too little and the plants know you are weak and they take over completely.
• Do talk encouragingly to your plants, just not when anyone can see or hear you.
• Don't over-water your grass. Not only does it waste water, it makes the worms crawl out of the turf and all over your sidewalk. Dead worms are really hard to get off the concrete.
• Don't buy materials for a yard project until you are truly ready to tackle it or you will forget what you were going to do with them and they will just sit there taunting you for a couple of seasons.
• And, finally, don't make anything you see on the internet that is made out of chicken wire. Chicken wire is a tool of the devil.