Sage Advice
Barbara Pearlman, a personal trainer and "movement specialist," bolts New York City on weekends for her country garden. Author of Gardener's Fitness: Weeding Out the Aches and Pains, she finds nothing as soothing as being alone with annuals, herbs, and hardy perennials. "If you have a busy, chaotic life, the garden is a place to recover your grounding," she says.
Sunshine is part of the therapeutic process, she maintains - as long as its mood-lifting abilities are balanced with protection against its damaging ultraviolet rays (UV). Over time, she has worked out these sun safety strategies:
- Work early in the day and late in the afternoon, when the sun's rays are less intense. "I'm a morning glory," she says. "I'm out by 7 am, so that I can get my time in without wilting. I work until about 10, then come back out after 4." If you must garden between 10 and 4, stay in the most shaded areas of the garden.
- Moisten a handkerchief or bandana with cool water, and wear it around your forehead under your hat. Having your head cool keeps your whole body cooler.
- Wear a very wide-brimmed hat. Visors and baseball caps don't protect the ears or back of the neck. Gardeners are constantly bent forward, leaving their neck and ears vulnerable.
- Wear a tightly-woven, long-sleeved shirt with the collar up, a T-shirt underneath to soak up sweat, long pants, and socks pulled over the ends of your pants. "That leaves the least skin sun-exposed, and the smallest landing pad for ticks."
- Keep a pitcher of water near, and drink frequently. Lemon or fresh mint gives the water a refreshing taste so that you can drink abundantly.
- Wear a broad-spectrum sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher. Having an adequate sunscreen SPF is even more important than knowing the pH level of your soil.
- Avoid wearing fragrances, because they may make you photosensitive. If you take mediation, check with your pharmacist to make sure it doesn't cause photosensitivity.
- Wear wide, wraparound, UV-blocking sunglasses. They shield your eyes and surrounding skin from the sun, and prevent injury from brambles or branches.
Pearlman notes that sun safety is important for the garden as well as the gardener. For example, water evaporates faster in the sun, so water plants late in the day. That way, they slowly sip the water all night. If you must water in daytime, water underneath the plant, not on the leaves. Otherwise, water collects on the leaves and acts like a mirror, reflecting and magnifying the sun's rays and scorching the leaves.
Also do transplants late in the day, because the double trauma of a transplant and the sun's heat may be too much for the plant.
That's the Pearlman plan. "Helena Rubenstein said that the sun ages you faster than bankruptcy," she concluded. "I've always kept that in mind."
