Do you have a love/hate relationship with your garden?
Is gardening an exercise in futility for you?
Do you feel like you throw away your gardening dollars year after year?
We wrote this book for you. We know what you’re going through, and we can help!
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Dear gardening friend,
Maybe you’re just like me – I’d been gardening for a few years, but my yard still looked, well, downright pitiful. It’s not like I wasn’t trying, ’cause I was digging in the dirt, buying new plants, asking for gardening advice at the nurseries, reading gardening books, emptying my wallet! What I didn’t realize was that I had never grasped the BIG CONCEPTS behind gardening.
Nobody teaches these concepts in school (unless you’re a botany or horticulture student). Year after year, I continued repeating the same mistakes over and over, with the same pitiful results.
A clueless gardener who thought all she had to do was stick plants in the ground…and voila!
Hi, I’m Tracy Cheney. You can tell from my confession above that I’m not a trained gardener. I’m an art teacher and writer, who dreamed of a glorious yard just like every other home owner. When my husband and I bought our first house, I jumped right into the immense gardening world, knowing nothing. We couldn’t afford to have someone else fix up the landscaping, but then, how hard could it be? You stick plants in the ground and they just grow, right? Okay, maybe you know more than I did!
A gardening angel appears … and is ignored (oh dear)
Over time, my yard began to look somewhat better – even if the results were hit and miss. I can see now that it was due to just picking up bits and pieces of knowledge.
But, fortune smiled on me one day, though I didn’t know it at the time. On that fateful afternoon, my neighbor – who happens to be a local gardening guru – couldn’t stand driving by my house one more time without saying something about my latest gardening “mistake.”
Now, please don’t take that the wrong way. Connie Eden (isn’t that the perfect last name for a dedicated gardener?)is the friendliest person around town. We were already buddies, having worked on a number of civic projects together. Because of our friendship, she finally asked me why in the world I was trying to train two mock oranges (basically small upright trees) as vines to twine through my new archway. I explained that I loved the look and scent of the white blossoms, and couldn’t wait until they matured into a divine, show-off piece for spring. Connie said it couldn’t be done. Ahem!
I didn’t believe her. And worse, I didn’t know what to do about it. Looking back, I should have dug up the trees immediately, freed the branches from the trellis, and let them do what they were meant to do – grow straight up into magnificent bushy trees. But oh no, I was determined to make this work.
Okay, I won’t describe the incessant labor over the years of constant trimming to tame the branches, or the fact that the constant trimming cut off the buds, or to get the buds to bloom I had to let the messy branches shoot ten feet into the air above the archway. My trellis looked like it sported a headdress!
Why don’t pitiful gardeners “get it?”
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I don’t know if Connie was more shocked by my lack of gardening knowledge, or the stubborness that accompanied it – you’ll have to ask her! Okay, okay, we could fill this website with stories and pictures of my myriad gardening disasters.
But you’re reading this wanting to know how I changed my mindset from gardening failure into gardening success, right?
I asked Connie questions. How lucky can an amateur gardener get? I was tutored by a real gardener over several years. The difference between Connie and all the other gardeners was that she could talk TO me, not AT me.
Connie grasped how differently we pitiful gardeners think – there was a wide gulf between us. Of course, I pestered her a lot until I understood some concept.
Before I met Connie, and I had to ask for gardening help at a nursery, I’m sorry to say that more often than not my eyes eventually glazed over during the conversation. I sincerely tried to listen and do what I was told, but the gardening advice was usually way over my head. And worse, since I didn’t have the complete picture, my new plants were doomed before I even drove them home.
Now, I readily accept that I know nothing about working on my car or computer. Whenever I have to talk to those technicians, my eyes glaze over the same way they did at the nursery. I don’t share the same knowledge base with the car and computer repairman, so we don’t speak the same language – though we may say the same words. I nod my head “yes” when they describe whatever the problem is, trying to look somewhat intelligent. I even repeat some of the words back to them. But we are not on the same wavelength.
And that happens every day in the gardening world. The difference is, we assume we know how to garden and that it should work – perhaps because it seems like such a natural activity. But there lies the catch. It isn’t a natural activity at all!!! That was the biggest ah-ha moment for me to come out of my discussions with Connie.
A book is born!
Fortunately, we began writing such insights down so as not to forget them. Eventually, our notes turned into a delightful book, “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook:Successful Gardening in Spite of Yourself.”
This book was written for my specific niche of gardeners who’ve really been trying to make this endeavor work, but feel like we’ve got brown thumbs half the time.
Please understand that “pitiful” is used in the most kindhearted and affectionate way – you already know if you’re a pitiful gardener or not. We embrace you! Like me, you’re not a beginning gardener because you’ve spent time and money for years on this activity. Often when we use the term, many folks identify with it immediately. Still others may not readily admit it – especially not to our gardening friends. We’re more likely to just nod our heads “yes” and try to carry on an intelligent-sounding conversation with you.
As I said, I didn’t even recognize my lack of gardening smarts for a very long time. Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of; the only landscaping knowledge that was passed down in my family was how to mow the lawn and weed the nearly non-existent, tired old flower beds.
Fortunately for you and me, my writing partner is a patient expert gardener. Believe me, Connie had to tell me the same stuff over and over again. I don’t know how many times I had to be shown how to prune roses correctly (alas, not the ideal plant for a pitiful gardener and we explain why in the book).
Why “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook” is different from other gardening books
I realize there are many gardening shows on television, and multitudes of books out there. But the difference is, our book focuses on YOU the gardener. The others focus on the garden.
In many gardening books, there’s an underlying assumption that you “get” it. But pitiful gardeners often don’t see the big picture…and the big picture is YOU. Gardening, whether it’s a success or failure, begins with you.
That’s what separates “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook” from the other gardening books. You gotta know yourself as a gardener first. Instead of looking at your yard first, we concentrate on you. Other books can analyze, assist, and recommend everything your landscape needs in encyclopedic detail, and we have many well-thumbed ones on our book shelves. But scant attention is paid to how you personally garden. At this point in your gardening life, it doesn’t do a lot of good to focus on the flowers but ignore the gardening habits of the person who is selecting them, planting them, caring for them, or ignoring and killing them.
We’re a support group for you
Would it help to know that you’re not alone? Since the publication of our book, we’ve met scores of pitiful gardeners. We’ve been able to bridge the communication gap between the real “gardeners” and those who want to become one. Still others have decided that they are Pitiful and Proud of It.
Wherever you fall on the spectrum, our humorous but very practical book will change the way you think about what you personally do or don’t do in your garden. Like us, don’t take your gardening mistakes too seriously. If we could, we’d actually come to your yard, analyze what’s going wrong and enjoy a good laugh together as we fixed it up together. That’s the spirit that permeates “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook.”
Our book is designed to be a quick read, and in more ways than one, a very economical read. Among gardening books, it is priced so you can afford to purchase it. We think it’s important information you need before you crack open the others. And second, it will save you money as you sort out how to make better gardening decisions tailor-made for you.
Besides helping you to figure out YOUR STYLE OF GARDENING, “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook” includes the basic gardening knowledge you need to make your landscape come alive. There are plenty of tips on plants, tools, compost, pest management (and more) that really work.
The concepts have been personally tested by yours truly
How do I know these concepts work? Because I’ve personally applied the knowledge I gained from this book in several diverse climates over the past few years. I don’t know anyone who has moved as often, due to my husband’s career. But it’s given me the opportunity (whoo-hoo) to apply the basic principles in unfamiliar terrain around the country, and without Connie’s benevolent presence looking over my shoulder.
Have there been goof-ups? Oh yeah. But I’ve improved my ability to analyze why they happened – usually after the fact. But hey, I learn something new about myself and my gardening each time. And that’s the real point behind “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook.”
Don’t continue making the same old gardening mistakes
So, having written this book, and learned so much from Connie, what do you think became of those mock orange trees bent to my will? As soon as I moved away from that house, they reverted to their natural state. Yes, they are huge bushy trees – and somewhere under them is my original trellis.
I thought about including a picture here, but that might embarrass the folks who bought my house and garden (with its numerous boo-boos). When I was selling the house, I tried to explain to the new owners in detail what to do about this particular situation. Now poor Connie still has to drive by that gardening disaster and look at it worsening year by year! At least she thinks of me and smiles.
You’ll put a smile on your face when you order “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook:Sucessful Gardening in Spite of Yourself!” It makes a great gift, too. Just think of how many people you can save from garden frustration, and turn their frowns into smiles.
Between the front and back covers (which I illustrated, using my old gardening gloves as models), we share our hard-earned, lots of dirt-under-the-fingernails knowledge in 176 pages. If you don’t want to work so hard, while achieving less than stunning results, then grab the book!
Here’s your goal in a nutshell: make gardening work for you, rather than your garden working you into a frenzy!!
Don’t waste any more money or effort. Kick back on the chaise lounge for a couple of hours and gain a fresh perspective on yourself as a gardener.
“The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook” will revitalize your gardening experience. Make your time in the garden the hobby you’ve always wanted it to be, instead of a hassle.
Purchase the book directly from us and save BIG for the HOLIDAYS!
GET THE BOOK NOW AS A HOLIDAY GIFT. ONLY $10.00! Includes FREE shipping!We know you’ll love the advice and gardening help, so we give you $3.00 off the list price, and pay your shipping and handling! For $10.00 you get A REALLY USEFUL, PRACTICAL gift!
(Full price: $12.95, $3.99 s/h)
This book will be the cheapest thing you buy for your garden this year. But quite possibly, it will have the biggest impact for only one ten dollar bill!
Thank you for ordering “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook.” We wrote it for you, our new friend. Feel free to email this page to your own friends.
Here’s to you, hoping your brown thumb turns green!
Tracy Cheney
pitifulgardener@gmail.com
