The Practiced Patience of Gardening with Kids
"Has this tested my mellow? Absolutely."
Welcome to the Edition Two of the Garden Study Interview! Look at our gorgeous new graphic, made by Garden Study reader Bekka Palmer! (She even wrote about the creation process over on her Substack, it’s lovely)
The basics of the Garden Study Interview:
You don’t have to be an expert, just enthusiastic
I make a document with some basic questions and send them off; if you have ideas for questions to include in future Q&As, put them in the comments
The goal is to include all types of gardening (container, flower, patio, community, desert, mountain, vegetable you name it) and zones; please be patient, I promise we’ll get to all of them
The comments are what really make this space shine, so please do so with abandon (and go back and check out new comments on older posts, like last week’s on Gardening Mistakes. You can find all previous issues editions here.)
And as always, if you know someone who’d like Garden Study, please forward this their way — but make sure to guide them to the specific way to *opt-in* to Garden Study emails, which you can find here.
And if you’d like to volunteer for a future Garden Study interview, here’s where you sign up (it might take years to get through them all, but I’m committed)
Now here’s Helena talking about hollyhocks, rabbit nests, gardening with kids — and looking for grape advice.
Name and Pronouns: (First name is fine, but so is full name)
Helena Swyter, she/her
Where do you garden?
I live in Chicago (Zone 5b) - sandy soil with a soupçon of urban heat island. We have direct and unrelenting sun in the front garden and very little shade in the back. It’s a small city garden so we pack a lot in.
We got rid of the grass in the front garden and parkway so I could plant as many flowers as possible. The backyard is a no-mow, kid-trampled, prairie grass space dominated by a swing set. We have a mulberry tree in the back that just started fruiting this year and a pear tree competing for sunlight.
Can you describe your gardening philosophy? How do you approach it, how do you think of gardening in your mind, what makes it feel valuable to you?
We moved into this house from a condo with no outdoor space when my daughter was four. From the beginning, I knew I wanted her to have free rein in the garden and be as involved as she wanted to be. I purposely pick plants that grow a lot of flowers – cosmos, hollyhocks, dahlias – so there are always more to come. Each Spring I put wildflower seeds in an old spice jar so she can sprinkle them out wherever she wants and feel ownership of the flowers created.
I love watching her and her friends enjoy the garden; they make bouquets, they make flower crowns, they turn hollyhock stems into swords. Right before I took some of these pictures my daughter denuded the lilies to play Flower Girl with an old Easter basket.
Has this tested my mellow? Absolutely. The first Spring when she plucked every tulip petal to make confetti I nearly cried. But in Kindergarten when given the prompt “I’m best at” my daughter drew a picture of herself picking a flower for her smiling, stick-figure mother and I’ve never felt more successful.
This summer, my daughter is 7 and has her own raised bed in the back where she is cultivating “lucky shamrocks” (technically wood sorrel but we’ll keep that between us) and prairie fleabane (terrible name, cute flower).
What’s your favorite nook/corner of your garden, and when does it really shine?
I’m obsessed with the hollyhocks in the front of our house. I started from a seed packet in the Fall of 2021 and was rewarded with a smattering of pink hollyhocks that next Spring. I let those go to seed and this summer, I have a glorious forest of hollyhocks. They are striking because they are so tall and colorful. The bees love them so I feel like a magnanimous do-gooder. The hollyhocks are slowly taking over the front garden and I’m here for it.
If a friend was starting with a blank slate of a garden, what three plants would you recommend as steady, reliable workhorses?
I’d start with daffodils. They are all show and little staying power but they set the stage for the season to come. After a Chicago winter, those first bulbs in the Spring are life-giving. I can also affirm in my role as rabbit restaurateur that these flowers go untouched.
For shade, my go-to is hostas. They require very little and come in so many leaf variegations. Plus, they flower!
Finally, I have a deep love of marigolds. They come in many colors of yellow, red, and orange, and I adore the smell when you deadhead them. Come Fall, they will make so many seeds for you to save for the following year.
What are your garden nemeses, and how have you attempted (or failed) to deal with them?
My very first Spring in this house I happened to read something about rabbit nests and went right outside to check a suspicious spot beneath my daughter’s tiny trampoline. Sure enough, we had baby bunnies. The trampoline was recommissioned as a maternity ward and has seen many litters since. I’ve embraced my role as doula.
We named the adult rabbits Radish and Rutabaga and watch with silent delight when they and their progeny choose to dine with us. They feast on peas, pole beans, and tulips and nap in the shade. I take their presence as a compliment to the habitat I’ve created.
Word has spread among the woodland creatures. This year some mourning doves clobbered my bleeding heart bush in pursuit of the perfect nest (though other birds have knocked seeds out of the bird feeder to make a little ersatz garden below so bird-debt: repaid).
Trust me, I get how having a rabbit mow down your crocuses after a long Winter can be dispiriting. We find work-arounds for some things. So far, no rabbit has had the chutzpah to come up on the deck and eat from the containers, so I’ll continue to grow more herbs and veggies there. I also read about growing peas from a hanging basket instead of on the ground so that’s in the plans for next year.
What’s a plant you wish you could grow but just doesn’t thrive in your specific conditions?
Citrus! While I doubt I could eat a tree full of oranges that doesn’t quell the desire to try. I don’t even like grapefruit that much but if I grew my own I feel like I would.
What still intimidates you about gardening and/or your garden?
I’m completely winging it and relying heavily on plants re-seeding themselves so the garden has random bald spots each Spring. Waiting for these bald spots to fill in vexes me. I tend to plant things too close together so that when they finally mature they are squished and I tell myself I will follow spacing directions next time. I don’t. It’s a perennial pendulum between bare ground and thicket.
What do you most often think about (or listen to) when you’re out in the garden?
My brain is blissfully empty when I’m gardening. I’m not thinking – I’m just doing. I like plants that benefit from casual puttering – how satisfying is deadheading? – and I’m forever in awe of what the garden produces. This year I summoned my whole family to look at a nigella’s seed pod because it was so cool.
The garden is the only space where I have no real deadlines. Sure, there are frost dates and seeds to get in the ground, but, more importantly, there’s next season. The seeds will keep and perhaps I’ll get them in the ground next year.
What are your future dreams for your garden?
I have clematis, bittersweet, and grape vines all begging for an arbor. I imagine arbors along the side of the garage to make a tunnel of green leaves and purple flowers. Maybe one day when the swing set is no longer with us I’ll have space for a hammock. That would be bliss.
Finally, this is your chance to crowdsource freely from the Garden Study community. What do you want to ask?
I’ll take any and all advice on growing grapes. I bought two vines on a whim at the end of the season a few years ago expecting them to produce some leaves to cover an otherwise unexciting side of the garage and they have taken off; grapes galore and vines vying for dominance. The answer is likely far more pruning than I’m currently doing.
An additional comments conversation starter: what vines do you grow, where have you grown them, and what’s your advice for getting them to thrive?