Why I hate the term “Low Maintenance Gardening?”

This might be a bit controversial but stay with me. I promise this does have to do with Dahlias. Some of you may disagree and I'm totally fine with that because we're talking about gardening. This is not a life or death issue. So agreeing to disagree is okay here. But I hope that you'll hear me out on this one. 

“Low maintenance” in your garden or landscape has become the biggest buzzword over the past decade. And I understand because unfortunately we don't have a lot of discretionary time in our lives. There are so many things that demand our time, our minimal resources, and even our wallets. But I think we're missing something when we demand that our gardens require little or no effort from us 

Low maintenance inspires a plant it and forget it type of mindset. Like selecting plants for your landscape is something to be done, to be checked off the to-do list. Things that you might happen to notice as you rush outside to your car to all the other many pressing things in your life 

But what if the plants on your way to the front door stopped you in your tracks?

What if the smell of the tea olive made you slow down just so you could relish it a little bit longer?  

What if the bright green tomato calls from your kitchen window leading you into the garden to admire it? Imagining how amazing it’s going to taste when fully ripe.

Gardens aren't meant to be planted and forgotten. They are places to wander, to reflect, to inspire us. We go to sit with our grief and the garden consoles. We meet with our friends and the garden celebrates. We yank and pull weeds and the garden soothes frustrations. We sow seeds and plant new flowers and the garden hopes with us.

The idea of low maintenance gardening signals a desire for the natural world around us to be ordered and unchaotic. Low maintenance encourages a disengagement with the natural world and supports the idea that we can live in our world without being an integral part of it. Maybe instead of advertising that you can have a beautiful garden without having to spend much time in it, we should be putting forth the view that says you can have a beautiful garden and the time you spend in it will be worthwhile. 

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that I dislike low maintenance plants. In fact, I think they're an absolute necessity in any style of garden. Some gardens may have more than others. I think you have to have low maintenance plants in order to take care of the needy ones. My main point here is what if we started spreading the view that a garden is a necessary part of your life. I think the landscape industry got it wrong when it tried to get people into gardening by introducing this idea of low maintenance. They left out one of the biggest benefits of gardening.
The way it makes you feel.
A garden can create a huge sense of accomplishment, it can sooth in a time of sadness, rejoice in good times. Getting our hands in the dirt has been proven to boost immunity, increase serotonin levels, and lower stress. Maybe we need the marketing engine behind the health and wellness industry to take on gardening ( I’m kidding!)

A garden can be a beautiful place to build community. Look at the community that has sprung up around dahlias (told you I’d get there!) Dahlias as a genus are a plant that can really encourage participation. You can't plant a dahlia and just walk away from it. It won't perform. It'll get attacked by bugs. Too much rain will rot it out. Too much heat/sunshine will burn it up. You have to pay attention to it. You have to engage with it. So, in order to be successful, you'll have to spend some time in your garden.
In this time, you're going to learn to observe. You're going to learn to solve problems. You'll understand how weather affects plants. And at the end of it all when that bud begins to open, you have the most beautiful reward. Dahlias are gorgeous! There's a reason that they call them ‘divas’. They really do steal the show.

If you can invite a person into the garden and encourage their interest in just one type of plant, it often spreads to many others and soon a gardener is born. Dahlias have been this gateway for so many of you. And nothing about them is low maintenance! So my thought is that the more people we encourage to grow dahlias, the more gardeners we create.