Ed's Head in Fall Colors

Ed’s Head tackles Mother Nature & gets bruised...

email Ed Laivo

Group Help For Gardeners!

It’s spring, the season of rejuvenation. Trees begin to bloom and I begin to envision the bounties of the garden. All the planning and preparation will insure that this year will be a perfect gardening year. I prepare for spring by doing everything I can do to produce a great bounty of fruits and vegetables.

But, to my surprise (or not....), the spring lashes out with a late downpour that wipes out my Apricot blossoms. Or the early tomatoes that I had in the ground are smitten by a late frost (or just the tops that were outside the wall-of-water). The early-season heat leads to a cooling of the soil and the seeds that I planted all rot and I need to replant. The copper spray on my peaches and nectarines was not timed to perfection & I have Curly Leaf. And let's not forget the old standby: just as I was ready to start harvesting the cherries, a late season rain caused most all of them to crack.

What’s a poor gardener to do?

This, my friends is the reason philosophy and psychology exist.

I believe there are no deeper thinkers than farmers and avid gardeners. Even before we changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers, people got together when all their best plans were thwarted by Mother Nature (or the next-valley neighbors). These people found comfort in one another and worked through the details of their challenges.

What, why and who to blame were the topics of discussion, and did anyone else have the same problem (misery loves company)?

Gardening forces us to look inside constantly: ego checks, pride checks, humility checks, pay checks. Gardening can make us examine our whole reason for being. Job went out in his gardens one day, looked at his crops & asked "Why me Lord, was it something I did?" These things happen...

We still ask the same questions, but for most of us the price of a psychologist is just too damn high (not to mention the pharmaceuticals), so we stuff our feelings and move on. But this, as is known, can have a negative effect on our life. To cope, we turn to gardening extremes such as growing roses or orchards. Some try to grow the perfect camellia, dabble in exotic fruits in strange climates, distill hard cider moonshine or even attempt a good marijuana harvest.

I don’t want anyone to get into trouble, so here I must discuss gardening self-help groups.

Gardening self-help groups can be found almost everywhere, although there are times when you must form one on your own. When looking for a good gardening self-help group, there are a few things that need to be considered:

First, I recommend that you live in or move to a town that is a gardening town.
So many towns that I see are obviously not gardening towns (the town is in need of a gardening help groups).

How do you know if your town is not a gardening town?
The look of the average home landscape in town should tell it all:

First, green-brown hay-like growth, mowed and watered (on occasion) for lawns.
A Privot planted by a bird in one part of the yard (one might think it was planned).
A hedge of Oleander, Boxwood and Bottlebrush all planted to block the view of a neighbor’s ugly yard.
The planter box (saved from the garbage can), with one plastic flower and two dead poinsettias from last Christmas.

If this is the average landscape in your town, or if this is your yard, you may need to start a gardening group (you could end up hated or a hero).

Gardening self-help groups come with a wide range of commitments and responsibilities. Most should only be used as needed by the individual.

I will cover a few to give you the idea...

Attend a talk at your local nursery: Limited responsibility. Drive to and sit and listen. Usually one speaker on a topic of interest or frustration. Your basic commitment is to stay awake (partially the speaker's job), pick up handouts or take notes.
Join a local garden club: Some responsibility. Attend meetings and pay dues. This is a group of gardeners who come together to feel each others joy and pain in the garden. Commitment: attend garden club functions and help with the organization. Warning: the running of this group is usually assumed by one or two people. This responsibility is easily avoided by those who always sit in the back and show up late for activities (as do most).
Specialized gardening groups: Maximum responsibility. Must have an addiction to growing some specific plant or plants. These are the super-psychotherapy groups of gardening. Groups like the Camellia society, Orchid Society and Rose Society are examples of these. Basic commitment. In general, these are Big Groups and you can get lost (& stay lost) in them if you are not one of the big players.
University connected groups: Mixed responsibility, Sometimes these are called Master Gardeners or extension people. These are groups of people in need of gardening companionship who come together to help people in need of gardening consoling. Basic commitment. Time in training, time on the phone.
Get a Job in the field, give up your life and become a full-time-paid-gardening/farming-psychologist: Lots of opportunity. Nurseryperson, Landscaper or Architect. Perhaps farming is appealing. There are farmers and there are soils and seed people (no farmer can know everything). There are tractor drivers, tractor sellers and tractor makers (every farm needs a tractor) Basic commitment. Your life. Is that too much to ask?

Don't let any of what I say here detour you from gardening. Just Remember...It could be worse: you could be into computers.