Gardening is not a team exercise. The solitude, for me
anyway, is all part of the grace of having my hands in the dirt. It is a way to relax and recharge while
obtaining a sense of accomplishment and pride. However, sharing my love of growing things with other
like-minded people takes it to a whole new level.
This is nothing new.
People form communities around shared interests all the time – whether a
dance club, antique cars, quilting, or furniture building. My first foray into garden groups was
when I lived in Portland, Oregon.
Portland has several intense garden clubs and societies that intimidated
me immensely. At the time there
was a definite economic stratification that I couldn’t fit into and I was very
much into edible landscaping and that didn’t seem to fit anywhere either.
My secret weakness was still English cottage-style inspired
by Gertrude Jekyll and I greedily absorbed every issue of Fine Gardening
and Horticulture magazines.
In the late 1980s, Horticulture had a very robust garden symposium
schedule and came to Portland or Seattle several times. When I saw that they were bringing the
“Cottage Garden” road show to Portland, I immediately signed up. Several guest speakers were curators of
large public gardens and one gentleman was an expert on grasses.
I was blown away.
The attendees were not the stuffy garden club members I expected. These people were serious plant
scholars. Many were professionals
in the landscape and nursery trade, but many more were educators, writers, and
plant breeders. Latin names of
plants rolled off of tongues and well-thumbed volumes of Hortus were
dutifully toted. The speakers were
absolutely amazing and I learned more that day then entire hort classes at
Oregon State. The grass expert was
touting the use of grass as specimen plantings in the landscape and his
insistence of replacing turf grass with low growing native sedges inspires me
to this day. It was really
this experience that got me to thinking about becoming a Master Gardener.
But years had to pass before I acted, and it wasn’t until I
moved here to Austin that I really pursued gardening groups in earnest. Part of it was because I have never
lived outside of the Pacific Northwest before, and I wanted to reach expert level
really fast in my new home to try to avoid costly mistakes. So I signed up for Master Gardener
certification and accepted an invitation to join a garden blogger group.
Again I was, and continue to be, blown away. Both of these groups contain a very diverse
group of gardeners. Most of them
belong to several other plant societies or garden industry trade groups. Everyone is passionate about what they
do and are eager to talk about it.
Both provide the opportunity to visit each other’s gardens and to see
how all those nursery plants are functioning in the home landscape. Some have garden helpers, but all have
their hands in the dirt. I have
more fun and learn more than I ever have about plant culture, site selection,
irrigation, and pest management. A
few weeks ago I hosted a group of friends and it was such a treat to talk
politics (organic or not), garden design, drought survival tactics, gripe about
the weather, more politics (water restrictions, gray water regulations) and
what was going to be planted in our gardens this fall.
Gardening in Central Texas is a huge challenge. The onslaught of pests, the extremes in
weather, the soil, and now the drought make it impossible for one person to
stand up against it alone. It has
made me a better gardener – simply because I plan better, but more importantly,
it has taught me to appreciate and seek out a community. I am having more fun than I ever
did in the plant paradise of the Pacific Northwest. And while I’m still not a “latin only” speaker, I’m better
informed and more open to new ideas.
Thank you everyone!
