Not Your Grandmother's Garden Club
By Carole Owen
I went to a garden club meeting recently. And I was in for a surprise.
I had never been to a garden club meeting. But new friends in the neighborhood asked me to go, including Cathy, the neighborhood garden guru, so I said yes. Cathy has fashioned a garden paradise with a gem of a fish pond in her back yard (it has a waterfall!). But more on that later.
I am so glad I went. Because I discovered that my old stereotype of white gloves, silver tea service sets and a social hour involving little talk about gardening was outdated. Plus, people can't be stereotyped. Then there was the issue of common interest. Suddenly, with no real effort on my part, I was in a room filled with people who love gardening and conservation, people just like me.
But I barely had time to consider this epiphany because the day's entertainment, I mean speaker, started firing so much information at us I could barely keep up. Writer/gardener David Roos said, for one thing, gardeners should "lighten up on the Latin. If you are a gardener, this is not really important. It doesn't make you a better gardener. It will just make you annoying to others."
He then turned serious and said gardeners are vitally important in the effort to solve some of the world's worst problems and to just look around to see why, especially at the children. Autism, behavioral problems and allergies are increasing at alarming rates, in Roos' opinion, "all because we are transforming from a gardening world to a chemical world."
There were 80 people at the meeting that day and Roos brought only 25 handouts. He commended the unexpected crowd and said organizers were to be praised for that. Although only women were in evidence at the Rock Spring Garden Club in Arlington, VA, Roos said that in Britain, especially, men are active in garden clubs and bring wives and children to meetings. That is because they are at the vanguard of a back-to-the-garden movement in Europe.
Roos, who wrote "22 Things Your Mother Never Told You About Gardening," said pesticides are not the only problem he sees today, citing fertilizers as bad for the environment and particularly for the Chesapeake Bay in this area. He said people should deploy organic preparations if they need to, but also should loosen their standards about what constitutes the "perfect" lawn. He said it makes no sense to use hazardous materials on our grass, then send the children out to play on top of the chemical mess.
"Don't try to grow plants; grow dirt and then stand back," is one of his standards. Gypsum and organic peat will break up hard-packed soil and clay. Put compost on top of the soil and mothball the rotary tiller and other power tools. "Your goal .... is to make your garden the happiest garden in the world for earthworms," signs of fertile, organic and most of all safe soil. That in turn saves the birds, the bees, the water, the atmosphere, our plants and food and therefore, us.
To start doing that, spend lots of time in the growing spaces. This is first on his list and every gardener knows why: "Observe and listen: the best manure for a plant is the gardener's shadow."
Finally, he left us feeling like stars at the October garden club meeting, saying we were in the "worst place in the continental United States to garden." He cited Virginia's nasty clay combined with the Middle Atlantic region's heat and tea rose-slaughtering humidity in summer followed by the cold winter's snow and ice. The area can only "grow corn and horses" with ease.
So while all gardeners are important, it is in the Mid-Atlantic that growers deserve real praise for optimism and persistence. "You are gardening gods," he said.
To start doing that, he suggested that we spend lots of time in the growing spaces. This is first on his list and every gardener knows why: "Observe and listen: the best manure for a plant is the gardener's shadow."
Finally, he left us feeling like stars at the October garden club meeting, saying we were in the "worst place in the continental United States to garden." He cited Virginia's nasty clay combined with the Middle Atlantic region's heat and tea rose-slaughtering humidity in summer, followed by the cold winter's snow and ice. The area can only "grow corn and horses" with ease.
So while all gardeners are important, it is in the Mid-Atlantic that growers deserve real praise for optimism and persistence. "You are gardening gods," he said.
