It all started innocently enough three decades ago with my friend Jean telling me there was a fantastic nursery that we just had to go to. We wandered what seemed like endless acres of green houses. I was ignorant in every aspect of horticulture, but Jean confidently instructed me about this plant and that shrub, admiring the tender shoots with shining eyes as if they were newborn babies.She convinced me that I needed to grow something, so with my pauper's resources, I purchased one small potted house plant, based on her educated recommendation. The cute little green baby asparagus fern eventually grew into a monster, trailing 6' long, with a span of at least 3', rivaling Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, whispering 'feed me' every time I passed it.
While the fern was taking over my dining room, Jean showed me how to take an avocado pit, pierce it with toothpicks and half submerge it in a glass of water, to start my very own avocado tree. My children were amazed to watch the seed slowly split, send down a delicate root into the water, followed by a shaft of green stalk sprouting with leaves. It was awesome to watch the process, and we could no longer simply throw avocado pits in the garbage.
It was after Jean hosted a 'plant party' that it became my full fledged addiction. Everyone that she invited had to bring plant cuttings and starts to trade. I left that day with the beginnings of Wandering Jew, Pathos, Purple Velvet, Prayer Plant, and Philodendron.
I potted, nurtured, clipped, propagated and shared the little new lives with any poor victim that would take them. Many met my plant enthusiasm with downcast eyes, politely saying thank you, while whispering polite protests of 'I have a brown thumb and will probably kill it.'
I realized it had become a sickness years later, when I couldn't stand seeing wilting, neglected plants on people's desks at work. 'Let me take that home and get it healthy' I would insist, and my house become a hospital emergency jungle ward for ailing greenery.
The first step was prune the ailing plant patient back severely, getting rid of the diseased and dead foliage. Second, set any viable cuttings in water to propagate. Third, nurture to make everything grow, grow, grow!
I became a plant pusher, a pathos pimp, a propagation purveyor, following steadfastly after Jean's example. I really went over the top when I became so bold as to ask total strangers and receptionists in business offices, if I could have cuttings from their beautiful plants.
I made my husband Jim crazy at least once a year when I repotted everything, giving the plants new soil, and room to grow. It was an all day project with dirt, and discarded trimmings everywhere.
After many moves, and protests from hubby, I finally pared it down to seven indoor plants, but when we moved into our new home 5 years ago to a bare dirt yard, it was like giving an artist a fresh palette and saying 'paint'. I was overwhelmed with the desire to plant, propagate, and create yard work for Jim and myself.
I filled our little parcel with dwarf fruit trees, cherry, pear, apple and plum. Blueberry bushes line the back, raspberries and strawberries the sides, and a few rhubarb plants for good measure. I put in a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees for shade and privacy year round. Roses line the front yard, along with a lilac, rhododendron, azaleas, gladiolas, hydrangeas, hens and chicks, and other things that I can't remember the names of.
Our friend Ron whacked a good size branch off his neighbors curly willow tree four years ago, and told us to stick it in the ground. To our amazement it grew into a beautiful tree. Every time a branch grows into the path to Jim's hobby shed, I prune it off and stick it into the ground, resulting in the beginnings of a curly willow forest, with nine curly willow trees lining our small yard, and many more given away to friends, neighbors and any stranger who dares compliment them.
Of course I use the word 'I' liberally when referring to all this gardening, since my poor husband is drafted into every project I create. He patiently fertilizes, mows, chops, weeds, and hauls the results of my vegetative visions, even though he proclaimed during our wedding vows that he does not garden. He appears resigned to my newest dream project of raised beds for the strawberries, since our marital arthritis is making it painful to bend or stoop to weed and pick for very long.
I was not surprised to learn later that Jean Godfrey, who is to blame for this fine and pleasant misery I enjoy, had become the Executive Director of the Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers Association. It is the perfect job for a Propagation Purveyor. For those of us who don't make plants a career, it is certainly a hobby that will grow on you.
Genesis 11: 27-31 So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...
