andthen

( a note I sent to Allie, about gardening )

I got the flower gardening bug from my grandmothers, I think. I remember as a little kid, my grandmother showing me how plants made seeds : by the yellow dusty stuff getting on that other part in the middle. I remember being really impressed by that.

Back then, annuals came in wooden flats, and you would scoop them out with a spatula. You would get some root damage, but there was no problem with things being root-bound later, like they can be when you plant them out of 6-packs and such. One memory I have is my grandmother letting me walk the empty wooden pansy flats back the nursery, and she would let me keep the deposit money. This must have been back in the late 50's , which shows you how long I've had an interest in such things.

I actually built some wooden flats out of redwood when I was in college, and would start my seeds in smaller pots, and then transplant them into the flats, and grow them on until they were big enough to go in the garden. Like yourself, I turned a weedy overgrown yard into a pretty nice place when I was renting a place like that in college. It was pretty amazing to make that kind of transformation in a place all by myself, as I'm sure you well know.

I grew a lot of perennials from seeds too, and would get them into the flats by mid-summer, and then hold them over the winter. When they *just* started to come up the following spring, that would be the time to plant them out into the garden, and they could adjust their growth to whatever root-damage they suffered from being dug out of their flats. A person could grow a *ton* of plants that way, if they could get the seeds to come up. I still have those flats today - redwood lasts a long time, even if it's been filled with dirt a bunch of times !

The place I live now is pretty wonderful, but the deer became so bad ( they will sleep the afternoon away, laying on my lawn ! ) that I just kind of let things go however they will. They won't eat peonies, so that's one of the reasons I got into them.

When I was in college, I joined my first plant society : they had a very active chapter of the Iris society in my town, and they about shit their pants when this young hippy kid with long hair joined their club. I met a lot of really wonderful ( and eccentric !) people through that group, and have been a member of various other plant societies ever since then. Belive me : you really meet the people who are...right on the cutting edge of things that way, and it's interesting to be on top of the various ways that people are pushing things forward with whatever the plant is that the society is about.

I don't know what your scene is there, but most societies will have flower shows during the season, and if you watch the paper, it's often a mind-blower to attend those things, and see exactly what really is going on with the hard-core folks.

And yes, the whole....transformation, and forward motion of life that a person sees in their garden during spring. That really is a lot of what its' about.

There are times when we can wonder where our own lives are going, but to see plants just....move right ahead, rain or shine, like they have a purpose they are comfortable and confident with...and then to see them arrive at a place of beauty....there is something in that which comforts us , I think.

It's a lot of why certain people "get the bug" I think. It shows them that things can actually go right in the world now and then.

That things want to go right, given the chance.

AT