Tips, Techniques, & Resources to Enhance Your Gardening Experience

Tips, Techniques, & Resources to Enhance Your Gardening Experience

Welcome to my garden — brought to you through the magic of my iPhone, a sturdy little tripod and my discreet lapel mic.

A big part of my vision in creating this website is to provide you with ‘how-to’, resource and tool tip videos, so you can experience more comfort, ease, and joy — and be empowered in your garden.

The videos you’ll find here will explain what Adaptive Gardening is, how it can benefit you, as well as introductions to a variety of tools that have been designed especially for the unique needs of senior and modern elder gardeners.

From time to time, I’ll also include content from the seminars and speaking engagements to inspire and enhance your gardening experience.

Please check back often for seasonal garden information, my latest tool tips and reviews, and how to grow your resilience in your garden and in your life.

“Your enthusiasm is contagious, and I found myself learning a great deal. The notes I took on your excellent handout are already invaluable. I shall garden for life and enjoy every moment.”

Cathy Sizeler
Hillside Garden Club of Montclair

It’s been a 20-year dream, which has required heap of persistence, patience, and more time and energy than I thought I had in me -- but standing on the other side, I can enthusiastically say, “It was all worth it.”

My new book arrived in stores across the country in August 2019, with the official ‘ribbon-cutting’ and celebration for my new online home on August 10th.

Through overcoming my own physical challenges and set-backs, I found my way to be of service to others -- by sharing how the gift of resilience, and our capacity to recover, adjust and regain, can actually be the doorway for more ease and joy -- in our gardens, and in our lives. I'm thrilled your here!

Hi, I’m Toni Gattone, Speaker, Author, Master Gardener, Adaptive Gardening Expert & Resilience Change-Agent.

My mission is to help gardeners grow their resilience, encourage them to accept what is, embrace change, and find creative solutions to keep gardening for life -- with comfort, ease, and joy.

Through my book, speaking engagements, blog and videos, I offer my “garden smarter, not harder approach” to gardening.

Through these resources, you’ll find practical tips and easy to incorporate techniques that help remove barriers, and create new opportunities, through an ‘adaptive approach’ to gardening.

Don’t throw in the trowel just yet!

Learning about Adaptive Gardening techniques and tips will help keep you in the garden -- even when you’re managing physical conditions that may prevent you from doing what you love to do.

This is where resiliency meets gardening, and where we uncover that there is always another way to get something done.

So, make yourself a nice cup of tea, or pour yourself a cold glass of lemonade -- pull up a comfy chair, and check out this video that will not only inspire hope, but also provide information and resources to support you in gardening for life!

This summary video is about a seminar I offer based on my book: The Lifelong Gardener, Garden with Ease and Joy at Any Age.

In my seminar, I provide solutions-oriented tips and resources for how to adapt your approach to gardening, modify your tools to overcome physical limitations, and find workable solutions.

I was inspired to develop this body of work when chronic back pain kept me from enjoying working in my garden. I had to come to terms with my new normal, accept my physical limitations, find solutions for ways to adapt, so I could continue to pursue my love for working and tending my own garden.

Whether you’re downsizing, or want to raise your gardens for greater comfort and ease, gardeners love growing their veggies, salad greens, and herbs and enjoy serving fresh food right from their gardens.

One of the many benefits of container gardening is that they’re moveable, so you can capture more of the sun as it shifts and changes from season to season.

And speaking of moving, your body will be more comfortable, and so much happier because you can tend to and harvest your edible feast without straining and bending over.

You can also find colorful and unique containers to compliment your patio or deck.

There’s just nothing like having just the right tool for the job.

Over the years, I’ve learned just how much gardeners appreciate their favorite, go-to tools -- and I’m no exception.

Featured in this video are the Reversible Kneeler Bench, Soil Scoop, and Tool Sharpener -- three of my very favorite, ergonomic and multifunctional tools, which are excellent at helping minimize discomfort, prevent injuries, and conserve energy -- especially when I’m working on a more involved gardening project.

Check out these comfort-enhancing and energy-saving gardening tools and accessories. I think you’ll agree!

If you're like me and, have decreased muscle strength or arthritis in your hands, you might think you have to continue to suffer through activities in your garden that have brought you a lot of joy in your life -- or even worse, keep you from gardening altogether.

In this video, I explain ways to support the position of your wrist when gardening to prevent discomfort, pain and potential injuries, and also how you can easily adapt the grip of your tools in clever ways, that will increase your comfort when using your gardening tools.

In Get a Grip Part 2, I demonstrate several helpful ergonomic tools on the market, which are designed to increase your comfort and safety while working in the garden. The tools featured in this video have completely changed my comfort level while gardening, and I highly recommend them.

Each of the tools featured will support your wrist while gardening, and even with basic household, and yard maintenance tasks -- which is why these tools are part of my repertoire of resources that support me in gardening for life!

No matter the task you’re doing in the garden, there's just the right glove for every job.

As we age, our skin gets thinner, and gardening can definitely take its toll on our hands. I recommend wearing gloves no matter how small the chore may be, as there's a great glove to protect you for whatever the task at hand might be.

This video shows three different gloves, but there are many others to choose from -- so get on out there, go shopping and get your glove on!