If you’re a senior gardener who’s agonizing over whether to downsize or stay put, a new book has been published just for you. The title, The Urban Garden, is really somewhat misleading. You don’t have to live in the city to adapt the ideas to your garden. They’re just as applicable in the burbs or even the boondocks.

In my garden club presentations, I stress that small space gardens can bring out creativity you never knew you had. That’s because you spent so much time toiling in your big garden just to keep up with the maintenance that you had little time to just sit and enjoy it. Tending a small garden leaves you with plenty of time to think creatively.

Authors Kathy Jentz and Teri Speight mention that more time for creativity is one of the benefits of a small space garden but it’s also an underlying theme of…