Tom Seaver, The Constant Gardener

There are two things that I am especially obsessive about.  One is gardening and the other is baseball.  Neither of which are very sexy in today’s culture but that’s okay with me.  I love them both for very different reasons.

So when I read through my e-mails this morning and came across a baseball story called “The Constant Gardener” I just had to read it.

The article is written by Pat Jordan about his long-time friend and baseball Hall of Famer, Tom Seaver.  Seaver’s career began several years before I was born but he was so good that he was able to pitch long enough that I got to see him join my beloved Red Sox for their historic (and heartbreaking) 1986 season when I was old enough to appreciate his contribution to the game. 

Seaver was known for his fastball, his bull-dog determination, and his ability to strike out hitters.  He’s a throwback to another type of player.  A real man’s man kind of guy.  What’s a guy like that doing as the centerpiece for an article called “The Constant Gardener” I wondered?

As I read through the lengthy article I discovered that after Seaver retired from baseball he eventually left his Greenwich, New York home and bought a parcel of land in Calistoga, California which is in the heart of the Napa wine country about 80 miles west of me here in Sacramento.  Seaver converted the land into a vineyard and his business, Seaver Family Vineyards, now produces about 600 cases of cabernet each year. 

Seaver grew up in Fresno, California where his father was in the “raisin business”.  Gardening didn’t interest Tom until he got to the big leagues though.  It was at that point that Seaver returned to his roots because discovered that gardening was a good way for him to relax between the days he pitched.  

"Outlining a vineyard," he said, "is the same as outlining your pitches for a game, or outlining an artwork. I shouldn't tell you this, 'cause I don't want you to think I didn't value my pitching. But if I could go back and have a second run at it, I'd have become an artist."

This quote from Seaver is amazing to me.  I never had the talent to play baseball at that level, but if I did I can’t help but think that my achievements at that level would certainly go down as my life’s work.  That I was put on this planet to play ball.  That Tom Seaver would consider giving all that up to be an artist, to do something like painting or gardening instead, is at once absurd and wonderful. 

He went silent for a moment, looking out over his property. Finally he said, "This was a blank palette when I first saw it. Now it's the most exciting thing I've ever done."

Because Seaver’s career came to an end in the mid-1980s  he missed the period in baseball in which the players started making the really big bucks.  Seaver earned over $1 million a year only twice in his 20 seasons.  He made approximately $6 million total.  That is a lot of money, no doubt, but considering that the league minimum in 20013 is roughly $500,000 a year and the average annual salary of a baseball player is almost $3.5 million, you could argue that Seaver would have been much better off financially if he had been born a decade later. 

When the author of the article asked him about missing out on the big paydays, Seaver responded by saying:

"I started to lose interest," he said. "I wanted to go home. I couldn't do it anymore. I never was pissed I missed the big paydays. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. If I'd made that $30 million a year, maybe I'd just have bought that huge, finished vineyard and let others do it all. I'd have missed out on the pleasure of being in the vineyards every day. My pleasure has always been in the work, not the ego."

As gardeners, I think we can all relate to this.  I think there are probably times when we think about how nice it would be to just write a check and have someone create the garden we’ve always dreamed about.  But if we did that, we’d miss out on the work it took.  And without that work, we’d miss out on the understanding of the garden.  And without the understanding we lose our sense of accomplishment.  And, quite frankly, I think Seaver was right.  The pleasure is in the work. 

Seaver wanted to be an artist.  But he was a Hall of Fame pitcher instead.  Now in his late 60’s, Seaver finds that maybe he’s been an artist all along. 

Just then, the sun came up on cue, click, like stage lights in a theater. It was a pale, reddish-blue color on an overcast day. Tom was disappointed. He'd wanted me to see it in all its fiery glory. Still, the sun's pale light on the vineyards was eerie and beautiful, the vines all darkish shadows without color, until they became a dark green flecked with purple as the sun rose higher, like a French Impressionist painting.

Tom said, "In a way, I'm painting this vineyard as if it was my artwork."

iGarden

Sometimes I think we gardeners typecast ourselves as eccentric, solitude-loving, back-to-nature tree huggers.  And you know what?  There’s probably a good reason for that (it’s the truth?). 

But I know that gardeners are as diverse in their other interests as their plots are diverse in plants.  I love the solitude of gardening and hugging trees is a metaphorical passion of mine.  I love how primal it feels to sink a shovel into the ground.  I love the sound it makes when you push down on the shovel and small roots give way under the pressure. 

It is an entirely different sensation than swiping to unlock my iPhone.  And yet, I love that sensation too.  I love the ease of the movement.  I love the swoosh sound.  The experience is anything but primal.

Slide to Unlock doormats - A black version can be purchased for $49.90 here.

I have tried to marry these opposite experiences by downloading gardening apps and using iTunes to play music while I worked (I have a playlist of songs chosen just for me to enjoy while gardening) but, like I imagine all arranged marriages to be, the result was clumsy and disheartening.

Yesterday was a beautiful California spring day.  It was sunny and warm and quiet.  So after I finished eating lunch I went outside to soak it up.  I was dressed for work and happened to be sporting a bright white shirt.  Not wanting to put forth the energy it would take to select a new outfit should the current one get dirty was sufficient motivation not to pull weeds, prune off rusty rose leaves, or turn the compost while I was out there. 

Instead, I sat down and looked around.  Although gardeners may be diverse in their interests and tendencies, I have a hunch that just sitting down and doing nothing much in the garden is not something most gardeners actually do on a regular basis.   It felt odd at first.  It felt lazy and that made me feel guilty.  It felt like I was missing an opportunity to get ahead of things out there.  It felt like I should be doing something, but what could I do without getting dirty and having to change clothes before going back to work? 

And then it hit me.  Actually, it gently vibrated my leg.  I pulled out my phone to see what was invading my privacy and after seeing that it was just a "Words with Friends" notice that it was my turn, I thought to check my DavesGarden.com journal so I could look up the cultivar name of the gardenia I had been admiring a minute previously.  From there I decided that I would use my phone's notes feature to update some of the things that I had noticed about the yard that I could take care of some other time when I wasn't wearing white.  I started thinking about things like taking the antenna off the roof, replacing some of the stones and wooly thyme in the pathway, and whether it was time to take out the lavender I planted so many years ago and no longer fits the look . . .

My current list could use some work
but it's a starting point for this weekend.

It wasn’t exactly a quiet meditation in the garden.  But it wasn’t exactly tuning out the natural world with an iOS device either.  When it was time to head back to work I felt like I had both rested and accomplished something.   And that is a great feeling for any gardener. 

A "Regular" 2012

Doesn't it seem like we are all making resolutions and telling people about them or we’re telling people why we don’t make resolutions?  I do make resolutions but I try to be creative with them.  One year I thought it would be fun to learn something new every month and I stuck with it for a while.  One month I learned how to juggle, another month I learned to roll over in a kayak, and then I tried to learn how to return phone calls.  The last one was the most difficult and is something I still struggle with today.  I really dislike answering the phone.

 

This year I resolved to at least try to go “Number 2” every single day.  Yeah, I know.  That’s not really the sort of thing people should announce to the world.  I just figured I’d be happier and healthier if I was more regular, colonicly speaking.  It’s just a little ironic that the resolution itself isn’t exactly, you know, regular.





I’m going to stick with that resolution but I’m adding to my plans for 2012.  Cat, who blogs as “The Whimsical Gardener”, wrote about centering her resolutions around a single word.  For 2011 that word was “espy” and this year it is “stretch.”  You should read both posts in which she explains why she chose the words and what they meant to her.  They have the ring of wisdom to them and are just a few thousand rungs higher up on the evolutionary ladder than my resolution to go poop every day. 

Inspired by what I read, I decided that I would spend 2012 with the word “cultivate” in mind.  I recognize that my life on January 4, 2012 has a perspective unique to today and I also know that life on December 31, 2012 will feel in many ways like a completely different life.  That is why I like Cat’s idea to choose a word rather than a specific goal.  By having just a single word to keep in mind we are free to grow, change, and strive for things throughout the year that we can't possibly conceive of in January. 

And that is great for me because I don’t know how my life is going to change in the coming year.  But I do know that if I work to cultivate relationships with my family and friends that my life will be richer for it.  I know that if I cultivate better habits for how I spend my time I will feel more satisfied with myself.  If I cultivate parts of my character I can improve the course of my future.  And if I cultivate a real vegetable garden for the first time ever I will be better fed and hopefully get more fiber in my diet which will have the added benefit of helping me with that other resolution.  So here's to 2012 and all that it will bring! 


*As a postscript, my ADD led me away from blogging long enough to click on over to Botanical Interests and place an order for some vegetable seeds so I can get started cultivating that new vegetable garden.  I have ordered from them in the past and I was very pleased with my success with the seeds and their packets are like little pieces of informative art. 

Each packet has an illustrated picture of the vegetable, common and botanical names, a plant tag, and information on when to plant and harvest.  As a hidden bonus, the insides of the packets include tips, recipes, pest control ideas, and a little history.  All for about $2.00 a packet. 

Gifts for Gardeners - And How We Can Get Them!

During my extensive web wanderings, I see a lot of internet ads targeted at people who know a gardener that would love something related to their obsession for Christmas.  But the non-gardener is almost always at a complete loss when it comes to buying a gift that the receiver would actually need or want.  And, I fear, all too often the purchaser overpays for something that will be gratefully accepted but ultimately underused or under-appreciated.   For example Red Envelope's garden tote and set of tools for $69.95.  It's a nice thought, but any serious gardener already has these tools. And besides, has anyone in the history of the world ever made a practice of hauling their pruners, hand forks and trowels around their yard in a tote bag?    

At this point in my life I find myself in the fortunate position where I can buy for myself some of the things I need and many of the things I just flat out want.  So when Christmas rolls around and people ask me what I want for a gift this year, there just isn't that much left to ask for.  I wish I could say that my lack of a wish list this time of year had more to do with recognizing the true meaning of the season than it does with my year-long tendency to gratify myself instantly.  That sounds "dirty."  What I mean is that as long as I buy myself whatever I want all year there's really nothing special I need in December. 

Obviously, that doesn't help those people in my life who, for whatever reason, think they would like to get me a gift.  So I have been learning to do a few things to make it easier on them and I thought I'd share those things with you just in case you find yourself in a similar predicament.

Stop Buying Stuff!

The first change I implemented was that I stopped buying myself things starting around mid-October.  For most gardeners, that's not the hardest thing to do because so many of us have already finished our gardening seasons by then.  But in Zone 9A, where I garden, mid-October through mid-November is prime tree and perennial planting season.  So, on some level, this is an actual sacrifice for me (a sacrifice for which I don't get enough credit, I think).  Of course, I found a way to get around my self-imposed spending hiatus and still get trees in the ground at the best time.  I simply buy my trees earlier in the season like I did with this Strawberry Tree.  I bought back in July and kept it in the pot until it was time to plant.  Disclosure time: I've read that this is unnecessary for trees that have been in nursery pots as they will almost always be better off being planted out even in the heat of summer than they are while stuck in a black plastic cauldron.

Books

Another change I implemented was that I started paying attention to the kinds of information I was going to Google for.  Although it seems that the world's secrets have all been recorded in HTML somewhere, inevitably, my online searches would lead me to blog postings or reviews about gardening books that promised even more information.  I find that although the gardening community is pretty subdued in its criticisms about all gardening efforts whether they be books, videos, or garden designs, the cream still rises to the top and the books with truly good information or inspiring prose would surface time and again.  If you've been paying attention to the books in the blogosphere, chances are that you've read about Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs or one of the many books written by the Garden Rant contributors like Garden Up! and Wicked Bugs.  I could easily list another 7 or 8 books just off the top of my head that have struck me as particularly interesting but I think you get the point.  But instead of buying these books for myself like I would the rest of the year, I added them to my Amazon wish list.  The great thing about the Amazon wish list is that people know about it and they can get exactly the book you want without worrying about buying the wrong addition or getting the wrong book entirely.  ("Was it Joy of Gardening or was it The Joy of Gardening?")  Even if you aren't much of a reader, gardening books can provide you with helpful data and inspiring photos.  I tend to read mine more in the winter as I stare out the window and wait for spring so they make wonderful and timely Christmas presents.   

Not gardening related, but I appreciate literal literature.

Gift Cards

Another option is gift cards.  I know, I know.  "How impersonal."  "How unthoughtful."  Well, say what you will about the worthiness of gift cards as presents; I adore them when I receive them even if I wouldn't dare to buy one for someone else without knowing that they also appreciated their plasticy promise of just what you need when you need it.  Gifts cards make good gifts for the gardener because they are easy for people to buy and they can be shipped without having to wait in line at the post office.  And, if they really want to, gift-givers can put them in a Hallmark card that says all the thoughtful things they think that the gift card doesn't communicate on its own.  But here is why a gift card is great for gardeners at Christmas time: very few things can be purchased from a nursery this time of year and put in the ground.  Heck, in many parts of the country, the plant sections of nurseries aren't even open this time of year.  So a gift card to a favorite garden center or online retailer is one way someone can give you a gardening present and still be sure that you'll eventually get exactly what you want.  Lest they think that it's still not a good gift, reassure them that the prospect of getting to use that gift card in spring will excite you throughout the winter months.  And, come spring, it will be like receiving a second gift when you actually get to use it.

Closed for the winter?

Expand Your Horizons

"Gardening" is a pretty encompassing term.  Underneath the umbrella of this one word is a plethora of genres.  You can be a vegetable gardener, a water plant gardener, a bonsai enthusiast, a daylily hybridizer, a plant propagator, a backyard orchardist, an urban farmer, a guerrilla gardener, a cottage gardener, a greenhouse grower, a fairy garden creator, a strawbale gardener and now, at least for the time being, you can even be a marijuana grower.  If you've been doing nothing but growing daylilies for the last decade, consider trying something different.  By doing so, you'll expand both your knowledge base and your shopping list.  Take bonsai, as an example.  As a new hobby you would need to get all new materials: how-to books, shallow pots, copper wiring, a concave cutter, pruning shears, planting soil, and a fresh supply of patience.  By taking up a new interest, you give someone else the opportunity to get you started off on the right foot.  You'd practically be doing them a favor by starting something new because it would be so easy for them to buy you something. 

I love pots.  I have several unused bonsai pots in my pot ghetto and in my garage. 

Consider Becoming a Collector

This is dangerous for a number of reasons, but it will make purchasing a gift for you easier for years to come.  My sister-in-law is a sweet lady.  She's so quiet, so polite, and so afraid to say anything that could possibly be construed as contrarian.  I'm not sure how she ended up in my family.  When she was a newlywed, she made the catastrophic mistake of telling my mother that she collected ceramic cow figurines.  At the time, it was just a new trend in her life and I'm sure it wasn't something she intended to make a permanent part of her life.  Two decades have passed and people are still buying her cow magnents for her refrigerator, cow-shaped cookie jars, cow-print hand towels, and yummy steaks.  Okay, not steaks; I was just kidding about that.  But now that I've mentioned it, I might have to consider that as a possibility this year.  So, if you want to collect something garden related, be sure it's something you can tolerate getting a lot of.  You should probably avoid a collection of gazing balls unless you want your flower bed to look like the ball crawl at Chuck E Cheese's. 



Which is which?  Is this the ball crawl?



Or is this the ball crawl?


Wish Lists

Finally, I'd like to revisit Amazon for a moment.  Although most people know that Amazon sells a bazillion different products, one of the coolest features of Amazon is how it puts you in touch with other retailers.  Many of the items being sold on Amazon are not actually products that will be shipped to you from Amazon but from retail partners.  But wait, there's more!  Recently Amazon featured a new tool that will help you keep track of all the wonderful things you could ever want in one simple list regardless of who has the item.  It's called the Amazon Wishlist Browser Button.  It's basically an add-on for your internet browser that you install and then, while visiting any web site if you find something you'd like, you simply click the "Add to Wish List" button and that item will be added to your list on Amazon so people don't have to hunt all over the World Wide Web to find the exact items you want.  I'm using this myself this year and hoping that my wife will get me this Hori-Hori from Annie's Annuals!

More Grace Please

I dozed off last night at 7:15 and why shouldn’t I?  It was raining, it was cold, and it was really dark.  Besides, we had turned off Monday Night Football so my daughter could watch an episode of The Berenstain Bears and, try as I might, I just can’t maintain interest in the "Mystery of Stinky Cow Milk" since the mystery is missing after 5 or 6 viewings.  So I fell asleep.  Two months ago I would have been outside doing something in the yard instead of drooling in my chair.   

A season's worth of rampant growth and this salvia is out of control and you can't even see the other plants.

Because I work pretty standard hours, most of my gardening takes place on the weekends or, during the summer months, after work.  So when the nights are dark and the weekends are packed with other things that need to be done, it presents scheduling challenges for me as a gardener.  What I have done lately in the yard can only be described as the bare minimum - maintaining a “someone probably still lives here” appearance.  In other words, I’ve mowed the lawn, picked up buckets of dog poop, and recycled about a dozen fliers advertising landscaping services (I think they have been targeting my house since it looks like I could use their help). 

These Kangaroo Paw blooms last forever - or until mid-October, whichever comes first.

During my lunch break today I went home and had a look around the yard since the sun had finally come out and I have missed connecting with my yard.  What I saw depressed me though.  Everything looks gross.  Crepe myrtle blossoms that once looked great on the tree are now slippery booger-looking things on my pathway.  Our rainy season finally arrived but I failed to adjust the drip irrigation timer so everything that hates wet feet is looking worse for wear.  Most of the plants that were in their glory this summer now look spent and gangly.  It's almost as if it never looked good . . . 

This is just too messy for me.

There are plenty of lessons I can learn from this experience.  I could remember to adjust the sprinkler systems earlier next year.  I could schedule a vacation day next October to devote to fall clean up chores.  I could change my pathway to something easier to sweep and keep clean since it’s apparent that the stepping stone look I thought I loved is not actually compatible with my personality . . . or, I could take the advice of Deborah Silver who recently wrote this bit of gardening wisdom:

I do not have the means or space to mount and maintain a garden that is lovely every moment of the entire season.  I have to make choices.  I like a late and a later season garden . . . This has every bit as much to do with my availability, as their form and flowers. There are very few garden plants I do not like.  I would have them all, if I could.           

But there are those plants that get special care and attention, as their time to be corresponds with my time to give. The big late blooming perennials-they occupy a special place in my gardening heart.  As for your garden, I would make this suggestion.  Choose the season that delights you the most-and go for broke.  If you want to grow great vegetables, organize your gardening efforts accordingly, and make plans for rocking pots of basil.  If you have a summer house elsewhere, make spring your season.  If you are a working person, plan for a glorious garden when you are the least busy.

Trying to be all things at all times sounds way too much like a competition.  A great garden that engages and satisfies an individual gardener is all about enabling a certain quality of life.  Those astonishingly beautiful pictures you see of gardens in magazines-they are all about a specific moment chosen by a gardener.  Choose your moment.

If Oprah and I were friends, I’d confide in her that reading the paragraphs above provided me with my “Aha! Moment” as a gardener.  As much as I would love to have a perfect looking garden in October it is, apparently, the time of year when I have the least to give my garden.  So I’m going to give myself a little more grace and I’m going to try to be happy with giving what I can. 

My Aha! Moment needs a light bulb above my head, but all I have is this lantern.

October - Support Your Independent Nursery Month

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." -Henry David Thoreau 



My favorite local IGC

The end of September is a busy time of year for me what with NFL games to watch, the baseball season wrapping up, and the inevitable list of social obligations to attend to.  A lot of the "busyness" is self-inflicted so I can’t complain and still expect to receive loads of sympathy like I normally would.  But my schedule has kept me from spending anything but the bare minimum of time in the garden and, as a result, I haven’t had much to write about that would be of any interest.

However, I have had a little time to read and yesterday I visited one of the blogs I find most interesting: “The Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger”.  I like Trey’s blog because it gives readers an inside look at the challenges of running an Independent Garden Center (or IGC) and, as a gardener who relies on independent nurseries to satiate my desire for quality and uncommon plants, I find Trey's topics to be both insightful and useful. 

Yesterday, Trey wrote about Pam Pennick’s latest post on her blog, “Digging”.  Pam decided that she wanted to declare October “Support Your Independent Nursery Month”.  Trey acknowledges the struggles that independent garden centers are going through in the recession and his blog deals with those challenges and offers up ideas on how to compete in a market that is not very competitive (at least not in the sense that the little guys have a real chance to compete) thanks to the long advertising arms of corporations like Home Depot and Lowe’s. 

I felt compelled to comment on Trey’s blog to say that I do like to align myself with the little guy and that I fully support indepedent nurseries.  But I also admitted that I frequently give my money to larger corporations like Apple, Starbucks, and Amazon even though I recognize that I am turning my back on the "Mom and Pop" music, coffee, and book shops that need my business just as much as nurseries do.  To (attempt to) paraphrase myself, I said that I had long ago decided that I wouldn’t spend my gardening dollars at Home Depot even if I happened to already be shopping there for other products.  I don’t have a problem with Home Depot at all – they have been there for me when I needed their products, they have been helpful to me as a customer, and I certainly didn't mind collecting a dividend when I was a shareholder.  But they get enough of my money when I purchase tools, ceiling fans, and PVC pipe.  My local nurseries offer me both better quality plants and a better shopping experience so I really try to honor my commitment to support those companies that support my gardening.  The nurseries I shop at offer me a place to seek advice from people who actually care about what they sell and my success with their products.  They do things to build authentic relationships with their customers.  And they genuinely seem happy to have me as a customer which is more than I can say for many of the checkout clerks that I routinely interrupt at Home Depot when I'm ready to pay for my items.  

In that vein, I would like to join with Pam in encouraging gardeners and garden bloggers to remember their favorite independent nurseries this October - and every month.  I think about how my enjoyment of gardening would suffer if my favorite nursery were to close.  I owe it to myself to support them in any way I can.  It is a tough economy and it seems no one is immune to that reality.  But if you still have money to spend on your garden, I hope you will consider spending that money where you think it will do the most good both for you and for the company you give it to.

And while we're at it, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give some more thought to the other places we give our money (I'm looking at you Amazon.com) and make sure that those are places we truly want to support as well.  

Ego Trips

Hopefully every gardener has a nursery that they love going to, even if it's just to look around.  Mine is Green Acres and it's right down the road from my house.  I consider myself to be a regular there.  I say that with the full understanding that my definition of a regular is probably totally different than their definition would be.  But for the last several years I have gone in there at least three or four times a month throughout the year so at the very least they have to give me "repeat customer", right?  No matter how they classify me, it doesn't change my love for this nursery.  I love the plant selection, I love the layout, I love the staff, I even love the satellite radio station they play on the speakers at just the right volume.  But somehow I manage to get in and out without being recognized much by the staff.  My outgoing friend and neighbor, Brian, is less of a regular but when he goes in there they know him by name!

A lesser man would have his pride wounded by this, but the truth is, I know I'm a bit of a wallflower and I don't go out of my way to make my presence known.  Not unless I've had a few too many cocktails anyway.  So it's good for me to have a friend like Brian who is willing to stop an employee and ask a question or find a manager and negotiate discounts on expensive items like fountains (more on that in the coming weeks, I hope).  Discounts are nice, but the real benefit of having an outgoing friend is that it gets me out of my shell a bit more than I'm comfortable with.  My default setting is to believe that when you put yourself out there you open yourself up to criticism and life is easier without that.  That said, my experience has also taught me that not much good happens when I hide out in life's corners.

So, in the spirit of stepping out of the shadows, I decided to add my blog to Blotanical a few weeks ago and it's been a great way to put my blog - and, by extension, myself - out there.  As a result, my tiny little blog has started to sprout.  (Sorry for the bad pun.)  It's been especially gratifying to have people comment on my blog posts and send me messages.  But it's been even better as a means of discovering some great garden-related blogs and bloggers.  None of that would have happened if I hadn't been willing to take a step out of my comfort zone.

This iris has absolutely nothing to do with the post.  I just like it.

Call me shallow, but the comments, compliments, and page views matter to me.  It's one thing to write a blog for nothing but the sheer enjoyment of writing and chronicling your efforts, but when you have an audience, no matter the size, it makes everything that much more fun and rewarding.  It's good for the ego.

Speaking of which, the other day I decided to make good use of my lunch hour so I drove down to Green Acres and bought a few plants I knew I'd want to get in the ground over the weekend.  While I was paying for them, the cashier asked me if I had a contractor's acount with them.  Hah!  A contractor's account?  Who me?  No, I'm just a quietly obsessed gardener who happens to come in here A LOT.

"No," I said, "I'm just a customer" and I walked out feeling like a true regular.

Know Thine Enemies or Something Like That

Weeds!  Curses, curses, curses!

While I was at work today I kept thinking about how much of my limited time out in the yard has been spent pulling weeds recently. As a chemical-free gardener, weed control is a laborious process for me. I liken it to jogging. It’s no fun, but when you are finished you feel like you have accomplished something and you feel better.  Well, that is you feel better unless you pull a muscle, develop shin splints, sprain an ankle, pop a blister on your foot, ruin your knees, get bit by a poodle, step in a puddle, fall on your face, or suffer from heat stroke. And then, if you somehow manage to survive the ordeal, you know you will just have to do it again and again before you even start to see any long term benefits from your efforts.

Look, I’ve got a full-time job, a toddler to help raise, a couple softball teams to coach, book clubs to participate in, social obligations, neighborhood watch meetings to attend, and Boston Red Sox games that need to be watched. In other words, I really don’t want to spend my free time pulling stupid weeds.  [Heavy sigh] But I know I need to.  And yes, my waistline could probably benefit from some jogging as well. [Heavier sigh - pun intended.] 

While bitterly mulling over this topic, it occurred to me that I was feeling more than a little bit of animosity towards my weeds.  In fact, my thoughts on weeds were downright unkind!  After all, they compete with my plants, they monopolize my time, and they steal my garden tools when I’m not looking. Okay, I admit that last part isn’t entirely true. I probably just misplaced that trowel.  But still, it'll be a cold July day in Sacramento before I'll trust them with my stuff! (For the out-of-towners, there's no such thing as a cold July day in Sacramento.  Just look at weather.com for proof that I do not jest.)

Side note: I don’t know what I’d do without the internet. Aside from providing me with historical weather data and the gazillion other ways it enriches my life, I am so thankful for the knowledge the internet provides me in my gardening endeavors.  Seriously, what did people do when they had a question none of their friends could answer before there were search engines?  (I can practically hear my mom shouting "Encyclopedias, Dummy!" at me.) 

Still mulling over the role weeds play in my life I asked myself this morning, “What’s that quote about knowing your enemy's weaknesses?”  Sounds like a question for Google.  Go ahead, click on the link before reading on.  It's worth a giggle or two.  According to the always correct Internet, the quote is a lot less quotable than I had remembered. I was thinking something like “Know thine enemies” but turned up with the much longer-winded quote:

“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” -Sun Tzu,  "Art of War"

Bear with me. There is a point to all this. You see, I know I have weeds and I have established that they are my enemies, but unlike the Japanese maples cultivars, ornamental grasses, and bell peppers in my garden, I don’t know the names of my enemies.  I suppose I just never liked weeds enough to find out what they were called.  A gruff and generic "that's a weed" would suffice if someone asked me what I was cultivating in my driveway.  You see, unlike blooming poppies on the roadside or fragrant roses growing by a picket fence, you don't often hear people say stuff like "Oh my!  Check out that courageous little nutsedge growing in the crack on the sidewalk."  Call it a gap in my education as a gardener, but the study of weeds doesn't seem to lend itself to learning by osmosis.   

It was past time to change this deficiency of mine so, once again, I turned to Google even though I knew where it would take me this time. I’m lucky enough to live pretty close to the University of California at Davis which has a great horticultural department and they have an entire web site devoted to scientifically-supported advice on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for both agricultural purposes and home landscaping. Through their web site I was able to look at a key with the most common weeds in our area and then identify the three officers leading the forces against me.  Here they are:

Sergeant Spotted Spurge

This is where the sidewalk and my driveway meet.  "Welcome home" it screams at me every single day.

Colonel Creeping Woodsorrel

The horticultural version of tailgating: "Dude, get off my grass already!"

Growing amongst wooly thyme, this can be hard to spot until it flowers.

Commandant Common Purslane.

Today's Two-for-One special: Common Purslane with a splat of Spurge. 

The good news is that all three of these can be picked off - and I literally mean that literally.  As long as I stay vigilant and pull these out by hand before they set seed I will win the battle and, eventually, the war will be easier to fight.  In the meantime, I'm a better garden warrior for knowing their names. 

Google Your Garden

Gardeners who have spent any significant amount of time in one place become intimately familiar with their plot of earth. The truly aware gardener knows minute details like which 5-foot area gets waterlogged after a rain or which area only gets sun during the hottest part of the day or where the shade from a younger tree falls throughout the day.

Gardeners know these things because they spend time walking around their yard, experiencing the garden at different times of the day and different times of the year. It is this awareness that helps them bond with their garden and become aware of what it needs and what it could do without.

But sometimes it helps to get a new perspective on something you get so close to. To quote Toad the Wet Sprocket’s song “Butterflies”: “You know how when you get so close to something that big you can’t see anything at all.” I think that’s how it is with gardening. We tend to get a little myopic about black spot on the roses or the floppiness of the nicotiana.

The easy solution is to invite someone over to take a look around and listen to their reactions. I was reminded, however, that technology can also provide a unique perspective. Google Maps have been around for several years and although I’ve checked out my house before I had never thought of how I could use it to improve my garden. So I checked it out again today . . . although nothing new has come to mind yet, it did reinforce some of the things that I’ve been thinking about. Namely, I need some privacy from the prying eyes of the 2-story house to the left of mine. And I still hate seed-happy palm trees.

Home is where the heart is.  On either side are prying eyes and an evil seed-dropping palm tree.

Google can be used for some other cool things related to the garden though. Check out what Genevieve Schmidt of North Coast Gardening discovered you can do with Google’s new image search by image feature.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Flame Wars.  I am a veteran of a few internet flame wars and I’m none too proud of some of the tactics I’ve taken.  My "IRL personality" is decidedly non-confrontational so it would probably surprise my friends to read some of the things I have written in the heat of the moment [pun intended].  It is the relative anonymity of the internet, I believe, that emboldens people with the conviction that they can say anything they want to other anonymous people on the internet.  I am guilty of this so this is by no means meant to be a holier-than-thou post.  

I often wonder if others are entertained by these type-written tiffs?  I can see the appeal, to a point, but far too often they cross a line and it becomes a glorified “I know you are, but what am I?” kind of argument or it simply devolves into petty name calling.  It’s why I don’t wear my xBox head set while playing Call of Duty.  The trash talking isn’t fun to me.  Probably because I’m the one getting shot up all the time . . . but also because it’s just a constant barrage of negativity.  I imagine that people who go to a forum or blog to read something would rather get something useful out of their experience than wade through a volley of character assasinations.

When I first found the forums at davesgarden.com I was amazed at the near total lack of flame wars.  That’s not to say there was never any disagreement or arguments over there because there were some pretty epic falling outs -- especially when the company was sold to Internet Brands and they ousted Dave.  But for the most part you could respond to a discussion or pose a question and expect to receive polite and helpful responses.  I’m generalizing here, but the online gardening world has always been a more genteel arena.  So I was surprised to find myself knee deep in an unexpected dispute with a fellow poster following Trey Pitsenberger’s blog the other day. 

After a good night’s sleep though I am happy to say that cooler heads have prevailed and for the first time in my life, I have accepted an apology from someone I don't even know and given an apology for my part in one of these wars.  Also, for the first time in my life, I can understand how others have felt a new sense of respect for their opponent.  In a span of less than 24 hours I went from thinking this guy was a grumpy old codger to now understanding that he’s just a passionate gardener that likes to shoot from the hip sometimes.  I can deal with that.  I can identify with that, in fact.   

My take away: given the right conditions, a little patience, and a healthy dose of cool water, gardens aren’t the only things that grow out of scorched earth.     

My "Local" Garden Center is Just a Google Search Away

Apparently March is the month when convention centers around the U.S. fill up with flowers,

Image Courtesy of Renjith Krishnan

creative landscape vignettes, and vendors selling everything from azaleas to zinnias. Or not. If my online sources are correct, these shows have experienced a noticeable decline not only in public attendance but also in participation from garden vendors. Instead of finding products such as apple trees or zucchini seedlings, attendees at these “flower” shows are finding leaf-guard gutters, concentrated cleaning supplies, sharp kitchen knives, and remodeling services. In other words, there is nothing that a gardener would want to buy at a flower show.

People seem genuinely concerned about the diminishing allure of these garden shows and they acknowledge that the allure is fading for both vendors and gardeners. You would have to assume that the flower show planners are feeling the pinch too.

I have read several blog entries about this topic recently and the question that keeps coming up is “what should we do to improve the shows?” I was particularly interested in how Trey Pitsenberger, aka The Blogging Nurseryman, approached this topic as I think that his awareness of the changes and challenges facing small business owners is second to none in the nursery trade.  He writes quite a bit about how his peers in the industry need to recognize the importance of social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook if they want to stay relevant.  A few days ago, he wrote a blog post called “Adapt or Die” and one of the ideas presented in the post was that flower show promoters and vendors need to do a better job at catering to the interests of younger gardeners who are more interested in things like composting and environmental benefits than they are in the aesthetics of plants.

The post generated an interesting discussion that included responses from some of California’s gardening heavyweights such as Farmer Fred and Annie of Annie’s Annuals fame. I won’t bother to rehash their comments as you can read them at the bottom of Trey's post. But a common theme presented by some of the responders is that Generation X and Y kids lack integrity, are ignorant of gardening, are“media whores”, and are the laziest generation ever. We were painted by some as disingenuous blowhards who say we want to save the planet but we can barely be bothered to separate the aluminum cans from our trash.

I felt like a small fish swimming with the sharks, but I felt compelled to respond. I wanted to respond partly because I was offended by the broad strokes of these comments and I think that this kind of attitude towards younger “customers” doesn’t create much of an incentive for Gen X and Y gardeners to establish a business relationship with people that have such a low opinion of them. But I also wanted to share why I don’t go to flower shows. Here is what I wrote:

I don’t own a small business and I don’t work in this field. I don’t attend flower shows either. But I wanted to respond anyway.

I am a Generation X customer who is passionate about gardening and that includes growing some of my own food, composting, general landscaping, and collecting cultivars that intrigue me.

In spite of my passion, I can’t convince myself to put up with the hassle of fighting traffic and paying to park, wandering around a fluorescently-lit convention center for a few hours only to leave empty handed and disspirited because I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to buy or could afford.

My flower show is the Internet. On the Internet I can learn about plants, I can stop and pause to think about how those plants might fit into my plan, and I can choose just the plants I want. And the blogging/discussion forum communities fulfill a lot of my desire to rub elbows with like-minded individuals so I don’t even feel as much need to go and physically rub elbows with other gardeners.

I’m not opposed to going to a flower show, but what’s the draw compared to what I can experience online?

I was thrilled when Trey responded enthusiastically to my post saying that I had summarized the challenge and opportunity facing flower shows or any business looking to attract Gen X and Y customers.

I was then blown away the next day when he wrote an entire blog post about my comment. I am encouraged that someone is listening to potential customers and really thinking about the message rather than just digging in their heels and bemoaning the fact that they don’t understand the young whippersnappers of the world. He also did a nice job synthesizing my thoughts when he read between the lines and concluded that although I spend a lot of time researching and buying things online, I am not opposed to going to the independent garden centers if I know they exist and if they have given me a compelling reason to check them out.

At the risk of making this post way too long, I just wanted to add that I think Trey nailed it. I went to Google one day and typed in “sun tolerant Japanese maples” and I found Lakes Nursery out in Newcastle. Although they don’t sell online, they do have a great site with relevant information and they seem like passionate business owners. A few weeks after I found them on the internet I was at their park-like nursery loading up my truck with Japanese maples. After getting my trees in their resting spots, I wrote the nursery a 5-star review on DavesGarden.com where over 2 million unique visitors stop by each month because that's what people of my generation like to do.

One of the many splendid views at Lakes Nursery

We might not appear to be the ideal customer base for baby boomer business owners but if they want our money and continued patronage for the next several decades, it wouldn’t hurt to meet us halfway – even if that meeting point happens to be in cyberspace.