Gardening For Senior Citizens By John Sanderson
Welcome to the world of the physically challenged gardener.
Don't despair. Adapt!
There's plenty of help out there in the form of advice, tools, raised flower beds and other specialized equipment. A Google search of "Disabled gardening tools" leads to 125 websites with specific helpful adaptive equipment. "Disabled gardening" gives a whopping 873,000 results where you can find advice and "handicapped gardening" yields 111,000. Let those arthritic fingers do your walking!
Problem: "The ground is just too far down there!"
Think about doing your gardening while sitting on a chair, instead of on the ground, squatting or bending over. The most obvious solution is to build raised flower beds and scatter containers throughout your garden area. Buy cheap plastic outdoor chairs and place one beside each mini-garden so you don't have to drag or carry when it's time to weed. You can just sit down and enjoy the feel of moist earth beneath your fingers and breathe in the heavenly smell of freshly applied fish emulsion.
If you hang a cup holder on the edge of your container, you can even have the luxury of tea or coffee with your weeds. Maybe the fish emulsion should wait.
Don't think about what you've lost now that you can't crawl around weeding the perennial border; teach your grandchild or a neighborhood kid the joy to be found doing that task ... you've just discovered a new adventure in gardening. The good news is that you may find whole different special areas of your yard where you can stick a mini-garden.
Get creative. Put a beautiful container near your front door and plant wonderfully scented flowers to greet your guests ... or perhaps a nice cherry tomato plant they can steal from on their way to ring your doorbell. Put a waist high herb garden right outside your kitchen door and add an area in it for your favorite cut flowers.
When you're deciding where to locate the raised bed or container, be sure to remember physically demanding practicalities like dragging a heavy hose to water it. Think and plan a low energy solution for what you'll do with the compost material.
Problem: "My painful hands don't have the strength for ..."
You can get tools which extend your arms
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3-Point Hitch Tractor-Mounted Top-Discharge DR® Chipper Wood Chipper Shredder
Mounted on the
back of your tractor, the 3-Point Hitch DR®
CHIPPER goes wherever you need it to, for
quickly clearing your property of unsightly
brush piles and woody material up to 4-1/2"
thick. With a top-discharge feature, the 3-Point
Hitch model DR® CHIPPER can easily expel chips
into a pickup truck bed, a large cart or wagon,
or even into a wooded area or field.
The head of the
chute can be angled down, for filling a truck
bed or for creating a large pile of chips. Angle
the head of the chute up and chips are dispersed
evenly over a large area. It can also be rotated
side to side. Constructed of heavy gauge steel
with a 35-pound flywheel.
Tractor Horsepower:
19 HP to 45 HP
Tractor
Mounting:
Fits category 0 or 1 three-point hitch
PTO Details:
Quick-attach, shielded PTO shaft for 1-3/8"
6-spline PTO with clockwise rotation
PTO RPM:
540
to reach the ground level flower bed from a sitting position. Several manufacturers make specially tools with light weight handles designed to keep the wrist and hand in a stress-free position and to provide a firmer grip. Small, light rakes, hoes, etc. like this can work wonders.
Think ratchet pruner, rachet lopping shears ... let the laws of physics give your hands a hand. You'll be amazed when you look at the tools available. Pull difficult weeds by stepping on a lever.
Problem: "I get so tired so quickly."
Hey, the weeds didn't grow all at once; you don't have to pull them all at once. Pace yourself. Find ways to make gardening something you do while you sit and drink a cup of tea and listen to the birds, rather than a work chore you slave away at for a full afternoon. Pull one weed from the scented garden near your front door on your way out and another weed on the way in. Plant parsley in your kitchen door herb garden while your toast is toasting and the coffee is dripping.
Buy and plant 3 packs of flowers instead of a whole flat. Take a nice aerobic walk around your yard, stopping at a different container for 5 minutes "conversation" with your plants on each cycle, then go back inside and plop on the recliner. You'll be amazed at how much gets done in these mini-work sessions. Your heart will love you, too.
Remember, one of the nice things about flowers is they don't have anything to prove. We can all learn a lesson from them. |
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Merry Mac Tow-Behind Wood Chipper Shredder - 18 HP, Model# SC183-16VEM
The
professional's top choice for lawn and garden
clean up! Ideal for growers and landscapers, for
municipalities, corporate grounds, campuses,
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make it possible to level the brush from a 60ft.
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screen. Electric start. Highway-towable. Truck
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Overall
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contributing daily to our compost machine website.
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Merry Mac Highway-Towable
Wood Chipper Shredder — 10 HP, Model# 12PHT10M

Hefty 10 HP Briggs and Stratton Intek engine. As powerful as your needs. Handles tough clean up of fallen branches, prunings, and leaves with ease. Compact size lets you store it in area 2ft. square. Toughness, versatility, and speed are what this machine is about. You'll get dependable, professional level operation, in a machine you can use year-round for clean-up, gardening, and landscaping. Tow behind ATVs or lawn tractors. 2-year limited warranty. Truck Ship. U.S.A.
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