All We Gardeners Want for Christmas Is…

December 3rd, 2024

   If Santa Claus could work his magic in the garden like he does in the toy shop, what would gardeners want him to deliver?

If only Santa’s magic could work for gardeners…

   Better weather would certainly be high on the wish list. Who else gripes more about the weather (too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold, too humid, etc.) than gardeners?

   I personally would like to see an “average” year that really acts like an average year. Instead of most of our 40 inches of precipitation coming in two summer thunderstorms and a January blizzard spread over three days total, I’d like to see an inch of rain every week during the growing season.

   Rain every Monday would be great, but never on Saturday or Sunday… unless there’s a Monday holiday, in which case rain all day Tuesday would be fine.

   A slightly longer growing season also would be nice. About three weeks of winter would be plenty – enough time to order seeds, read a gardening magazine, sketch out a new garden plan, and catch a little rest. Then get back to brighter, warmer weather.

   I’ll bet good, old Santa could do something about the assorted bugs, animals, diseases, and other foes that we do battle with each year.

   I’d like to see a fence that keeps deer from going over, groundhogs from going under, and voles from going through – all while not being an eyesore and being cheap, of course.

   Instead of ever-more-troublesome new pests like spotted lanternflies and emerald ash borers, wouldn’t it be great if Santa could bring us a James Bond kind of helpful bug?

   This good-guy bug would wipe out our worst pests and also feed on weeds instead of roses, dogwoods, and ash trees. I’m thinking here of, say, a saw-toothed wasp that would polish off every Japanese beetle in creation… or maybe a “debagger beetle” that feeds on those deadly bagworms that devour our arborvitae.

   While Santa’s at it, maybe his magic could change the diets of a few animal pests. Wouldn’t it work out better if deer preferred voles over leaves? Or if groundhogs ate rabbits and rabbits ate groundhogs. Then the two of them could scare each other away.

   At the very least, I’d be happy to see a few new tasty vegetables that WE like but that animals and bugs don’t. How comes we always seem to like the same things?

   Besides that James Bond bug that eats weeds, it’d be great to have a new weed-killer that works like a smart bomb.

   This product would know the difference between weeds and good plants and would be able to kill weeds forever while doing absolutely no harm to good plants or the environment. And it would be cheap.

   Another Santa miracle could be actual good soil. A soft, rich loam about three feet deep would work a lot better than the solid clay or the beds full of heavily-graded, shale-infested subsoil that masquerade as “topsoil” around here.

   At the heart of our lists, though, would be plant wishes.

   I’d be happy with a few plants that turn out to be even half as good as the catalogs say they are.

   And how about some flowers that actually smell good? What happened to fragrance?

   But the plant that everyone is waiting for – and not just gardeners – is the one we all go into the garden center looking for but never find. It would be called the “utopia plant.”

   This plant grows overnight to any desired size and then stays there forever without any pruning. It doesn’t need water or fertilizer, doesn’t get bugs or disease, blooms all year long without dead-heading, smells great, isn’t messy, has no thorns and, altogether now, is cheap.

   Good luck on that one, Santa. We’ll be happy if you can come up with any three or four traits from that list.

   If a utopia plant isn’t doable, we’ll settle for a gift certificate good for at least one of every new plant – along with the garden space to cram it all in somewhere.

   And besides that wonder fence described above, there are two other gardening products I’d like to see under the Christmas tree.

   One is a pair of pruners designed using the find-the-lost-iPhone technology. When I misplace the pruners for the gazillioneth time, all I’d have to do is tell Siri to beep me to the right spot.

   The other product would be a hose that doesn’t leak or kink… and not just according to the label either. And while you’re at it, Santa, how about making it one that rolls out and rolls back all by itself?

   Just in case you don’t grant Wish No. 1 and the weather ends up steamy and 102 degrees again next summer, maybe you could borrow an idea from baseball and give us our own “designated digger” or “designated mulch lugger.” This temporary helper would give us more time for the fun stuff, like sniffing, harvesting, and flower-gazing.

   While you’re at it, how about tossing in garden swings and garden benches for everyone, even though REAL gardeners never sit down anyway.

   I know that’s a lot to ask. So if you can only deliver on one thing, I think most of us gardeners would be satisfied if our 2025 gardens look just a little like the ones in our winter dreams.

   Merry Christmas!