SHARING SECRETS: Making Things Easier As We Age
- k-england
- Nov 1
- 7 min read
Edited by Cathy Tylka, for Let’s Talk Plants! November 2025.
This month’s question:
What are you doing in your garden to make things easier to maintain as you grow older and your knees/back/muscles don't cooperate as they used to? This question is thanks to Susi Torre-Bueno!
Linda Chisari reports…
... In 1976, when we moved into our current house in Del Mar, we were very excited to find a huge, south-facing backyard, perfect for a vegetable garden. Because that space was paved in asphalt, having been used to park cars, my husband, Frank, built a series of 8 - 4’x8’x18" redwood raised beds, simply breaking up the asphalt underneath each bed to assure good drainage.
Those beds have supplied our family with vegetables over the ensuing 49 years, having been replaced three times. In addition, the beds made it easy for our then-young children to garden, the beds mostly kept our series of golden retrievers out of the vegetables, and now that we’re in our 80s, with stiffened backs and knees, they make it easy to grow and pick the vegetables!
Daniel Garberg simply states…
... Regular resistance training and yoga.
Editor’s note: So sad, no pictures, however I did read a small, wonderful book once called, “Gardener’s Yoga.”
With the right sequence of yoga poses, a gardener's body can bend with the wind and stretch to the sky to alleviate the aches that come from all that digging, pulling, and carrying. This is a beautifully illustrated book.
Susan and Frank Oddo share,...
... We’ve added rails and posts in places that slope downhill to avoid slipping and falling. Pathway bark has replaced DG on sloped walkways. Removing rocks at the edge of trails allowed safer access to weed and trim.
We added a weekly landscaper to help for a couple of hours. Almost 3 acres is fun when you are younger but, increasingly, in our 80s it is a challenge. A portable seat saves the back.
We have mostly low maintenance plants but they still need cleaning and care. I bought feeding tongs for snakes from Chewy.com ( VILA Snake & Bearded Dragon Stainless Steel Reptile Feeding Tongs, Aquarium Long Tweezers, 2 count - Chewy.com) to clean leaf litter out of agaves.
Long ago we put in raised beds for vegetables to help Frank’s Mom when she lived with us. Those are great for old backs. Battery tools are a big help.
Susi Torre-Bueno related...
...When I started planting my garden 18 years ago, right after we finished building the house, I put in a lot of perennials that are now finishing their cycle of life. To replace them, I use slow growing succulents for less future maintenance.
(Editor’s note: AND, a big thanks for Susi suggesting this question!)
Jim Bishop 92103, includes this response…
... Does getting a reverse left artificial shoulder joint count? I’ve pretty much worn out my left shoulder from years of activities, one of which was lots of gardening. It’s been giving me pain and problems for over 20 years. Reaching out to weed and other activities that required lifting and extending my arm or lifting things over my head had become increasingly difficult. So, I finally decided to take the plunge and get the joint replaced. I’m only on day 3 of post-surgery as I write this, so it will be interesting to see how it is doing when it is published a month later. So far things have gone better than I expected.
Gerald D Stewart of 92084 participates with this response…
... I am not using small containers anymore. Five gallon is the smallest I am planning to use for the plant collections that aren't going to be planted in the ground, with the exception of over 125 coleus cultivars, which are in 8-1/2" pots. Hanging baskets are now 12" diameter with a bottom design that holds water that can be carefully accessed by the soil. I try to get plants for planting in the ground grown in nothing larger than a 1 gallon to save digging big holes.
Little by little the entire acre will have irrigation lines for plants in pots, and drip for all in-ground areas, all irrigation lines to eventually be on timeclocks. Warehouse areas are having racks set up to ease finding the myriad things necessary for gardening, greenhouse production, equipment and supplies for the constant maintenance needs, fertilizers, soil mixes and components, and on and on.
A little under 2000 square feet of greenhouses are slowly being renovated and insulated for tropicals that need more winter warmth than my area gets, with heaters that will be on thermostats to come on only when needed. That way I can grow the plants on benches in permanent locations, eliminating moving plants that spend spring to fall outside to the greenhouse space and covering them for cold protection.
Compost and mulch are slowly covering all areas with plants growing in them, to eliminate as much hand weed control as possible. The list goes on, but this gives a pretty good example of how efforts that I used to take for granted are being replaced with more efficient methods. I may be in my eighth decade, with corresponding diminished strength, stamina, and flexibility, but conscientiously evolving how the property and numerous plant collections are maintained has not slowed down the compulsive acquisition of new plants for the collections.
Ida Rigby partakes with this response…
... I came in from the garden after wondering if I would have to choose between tennis and gardening and found Susi's apt question. What I am doing to extend my life in the garden comes from the perspective of an 81-year-old, so may or may not be helpful.
First, there are a few things I accept that it's the last time I'll do them: I am completing a new gravel path, and hauling gravel is probably over.
Second, I just do fewer tasks at one gardening session and change tasks frequently so as not to develop repetitive stress tweaks or injuries; that means no more sitting for two hours in the dry creek bed and weeding. I take breaks and change it up. Visitors remark that I must really enjoy just sitting in the garden. Until now I just looked at them and only saw the next project calling. I have now installed a few more chairs and benches in the garden, for me.
Third, I am doing more gardening in decorative pots, which I place where they will stay and then fill them with soil, plants and then water. I know that a filled 10" pot is the most I want to lift from the ground.
Fourth, I am doing more small scale specimen succulent gardening and enjoying finding special pots.
Fifth, I am keeping an eye out for more garden adornments, usually animals, in Talavera ceramics, concrete or metal, for interesting accents that will not require kneeling to tend them over the coming years.
Sixth, I do a lot of stretching and work out. Working out to whatever extent you can is a key.
Seventh, and very important, when I am leaving the garden, I do not heed the siren call of one more weed that beckons me to bend over when I am tired.
Eighth, I plant fewer annuals, three tomato plants rather than eight; I broke this rule for strawberries and planted six rows rather than three this year. As Martina Navratliova says of aging tennis players, we play for the love of the sport. We garden for the love of our gardens and need to follow our hearts even if we heed a few restrictions.
Ninth, in deference to a combination of accepting the new reality of blistering summers (Poway) and my limitations, I am imposing a little triage and a little survival of the fittest on the garden. I am not coddling plants that needed extra water this summer; they are gone. My October and November renovation of the now 33-year-old garden will include transplanting seedlings that have come up in the garden and want to be here, and new native plant purchases, perhaps a few Australians and South Africans, but mostly natives. I like to think of myself as that Sardinian elder who keeps fit herding sheep up rocky hillsides (chasing tennis balls) and tending her garden well into her 100s.
Lorie Johansen of 92084 gives us this answer…
... We discuss this question daily as we embark on our 7th decade and 24 years of ownership of our 2 acre property in Bonsall. It is our goal to age in place.
Twenty years ago, I managed to plant nearly every square inch with plants from friends, swap tables, nurseries, plant sales, and sometimes garbage cans. Now I am filling my own garbage cans with large overgrown drifts of various succulents that have gotten old and woody. The goal is to have trees and shrubs that require little maintenance widely spaced with mulch being a predominant part of the view. Negative space will be my best friend as we enter the 8th and 9th decades.
This week we hired out a monumental removal job of 10 bougainvillea shrubs. They were taking over the view and the number of times of getting bloody scratches from the thorns became too many.
Here is the before and after, $2000 later:
Vince McGrath of 91941 states…
... Knee pads and elbow length leather gloves and a tree trunk if it's close by!
Karen England of 92084 has instituted a policy ...
... of never going out into the garden without a fully charged mobile phone. Why? So she can call 911 when (unfortunately not if) she falls and no one is around, (and not to mention being able to summon help during scary run-ins with coyotes and rattlers while picking persimmons). Her most recent fall was in the chicken coop and, although no hens were harmed and no eggs were broken in the incident, she did sprain her wrist and ruin some clothes.
Five years ago, Karen wrote an article for Let’s Talk Plants! somewhat similar to this shared secret but over the years she forgot her own good advice and started wandering off without her iPhone or iWatch. Not anymore.
Cathy Tylka, of 92026, gives this answer…
... This is a tough year for me, not sure why. So, ...
#1 - I moved my planting table to the shade and it is waist high.
#2 - My dear friend and gardener, Bartolo is a part of my life and, while my Hubby used to help me, he has one new knee and had major spinal surgery. He’s still helping, just slower and takes longer.
#3 - I sit and enjoy my garden more,
...and drink coffee and enjoy my garden more...
…and drink wine and enjoy my garden more.
Ida Rigby helped me with this suggestion for next month’s Sharing Secrets Column question:
Please share images of vignettes in your garden that you have made with sculptural elements or pottery.
Cathy Tylka, RN, retired Emergency Nurse, found her love of plants and the SDHS merge many years ago. Cathy acted as Treasurer for the organization and volunteers for many activities. Now, she is more than happy to assist in gathering questions to ask you in the Sharing Secrets area of the Newsletter.
