Garden Related Gifts
Gardeners’ Corner | Questions and Answers with Local Experts
By Dan Songster, 2017 January
This column is a regular newsletter feature offering chapter members and local experts a chance to briefly share information on many things related to gardening with natives. The question for this newsletter is: “What is the best garden-related gift you have ever received?”
Jackie Brodsky-“For me (74), the best gift ever was “labor“. My grandson dug the holes and I planted each plant with TLC. Bazinga!”
Sima Bernstein-“The best gift was a banner with the following: GARDENING IS THE SLOWEST OF THE PERFORMING ARTS.”
Orchid Black-“Best gift ever: a British-made poacher’s spade. I never use a bigger shovel anymore. If I were a new gardener, I would want a pair of Felco pruners.”
John Gossett-“Long-sleeved Foxgloves, by far the best gift ever. They allow me to weed, dig, and transplant, and yet feel what I am doing almost as well as if my hands were bare. I wore garden gloves of all sorts for years, but for these tasks they always came off in the first few minutes, leading to hands dry enough to drain a lake. These won’t last a long time, but they work. I use leather gloves for the other garden tasks. I always replace them with red ones to make them easy to find, but then I am expert at misplacing things, so maybe you would like a less blatant color?”
Rama Nayeri-“Cow…[poop]. I have a friend who is a farmer and she takes her cow feces and turns it into manure tea.“
Bob Allen-“Help weeding!“
Terry LePage-“Gift certificates for native plant nurseries!”
Dan Songster-“My favorite “Gift” was the time given to me by plant legends such as John Dourley, Lee Lenz, Mike Evans, Dave Fross, and a young Bart O’Brien in the early days of my relationship with native plants. Even today I am impressed and thankful for the way native plant folks such as Glenn Keator, Lili Singer, Carol Bornstein, Greg Rubin, and Jeff Bohn respond to questions I have.
Plant lovers make a wonderful giving community, that is for sure!