How’s Your “Bounce-Backability?”
November 19th, 2024
As another growing season has come to a close, I have to confess I’m ready for a break.
On the one hand, I’ll really miss the fresh veggies, the flowers, and the walks around the yard to see what new developments are going on. But on the other, I’m tired.
I guess that comes with Medicare territory. I knew I was heading there about a dozen years ago when I found myself thinking twice before bending over to pull a weed. My mind decided to assess whether the weed was worth the wear-and-tear on my back… and whether there was something else I could get done while down there to make the most out of the groan.
So it goes with aging gardeners. The “golden years” are great when it comes to more time to garden, but the acts of getting it all done keep getting more and more “challenging.”
Toni Gattone knows the feeling. Like many gardeners who put way more bending mileage on their bodies than couch potatoes, her back was a loud reminder that she wasn’t 30 or even 40 years old anymore.
Rather than give up her beloved hobby, this California gardener read, learned, and tried everything she could to beef up her resiliency – the ability to adapt to and quickly recover from setbacks and challenges.
“When you have more resilience, you’re never going to give up,” Gattone said in a Great Grow Along webinar. “Instead, you’re going to develop what I call ‘bounce-backability.’”
Gattone distilled her gardening bounce-backability plan into three main strategies – 1.) adapt yourself, 2.) adapt your garden, and 3.) adapt your tool arsenal.
She goes into detail in her book “The Lifelong Gardener” (Timber Press, $19.99, 2019).