Wow, I'm a Gardener

I walked around Cypress Garden Nursery today, drunk on beauty and fragrance.  I feasted my eyes on a froth of flowers and realized the Cypress Garden had simply transferred all their knowledge about growing healthy vibrant plants to me.  I have at last replicated their success, at least a much smaller version, and I am immensely grateful to them for that.

This year, my garden, which is largely a container garden, has sprung from a sad, ratty ugliness born of serious neglect to become the most abundant garden I've ever grown before.  What's my secret?  First of all, I had to pay attention to it more often.  Then, heavy pruning in January, regular feeding with an organic fertilizer and regular watering -- if rain wasn't doing the job -- has turned the tide.  (I have settled on E.B. White organic fertilizer, and I don't get paid to say so.)  My plants are growing abundantly and are producing profuse amounts of flowers.  A couple of plants are very challenging, and I still I need to figure them out, but the majority are dancing on their stems in apparent happiness.  I like to think so anyway.

Pruning is the one area that takes time to master, and I have asked a lot of questions.  If injudicious cuts are made, you can lose a plant, but if you don't prune out dead wood at the beginning of the growing season, the plant is stuck with it and vitality is lost.  Roses, the most vulnerable plants to pests and horrible afflictions, need pruning in January and then constant attention to battle the waves of predators that materialize from nowhere.  So, I remembered that and accomplished my pruning when the yard was still cold and dreary.  Now the roses are popping out all over the plants like nobody's business.

It is said that life happens in seasons not in 30-minute segments, so I am in this for the long haul now.  Sticking with the plants as they go through their life cycle is proving to me that keeping my eyes on the prize (lots of flowers throughout the growing season) takes perseverance and a long-term focus, but wow is it worth it.  If my flowers could sing, I'd hear quite a chorus.

Winter Gardening With A Friend

When I was a neophyte gardener a few years ago, I was timid about pruning back older plants.  I thought they'd die of shock if I trimmed them.  Not so.  One friend has been a great sounding board for my gardening questions through the years and she has given me dozens of cuttings and starter plants.  She gave me my gardening gloves and showed me the how-to about nearly everything in my garden.  It's quite a thing to have a mentor, whether they see themselves as one or not.  In this case, we see each other as friends and agree that digging in the dirt to make things grow is a huge pleasure.  She's just been doing it a whole lot longer than I have.  

Thanks to her, I am bolder and more at home in the garden - just like I imagined I would be.  But I needed her guidance, and she has been giving it steadily through the past dozen or more years.

My friend grew up in a family of siblings who all admire a fine garden and who are all resourceful and don't mind rolling up sleeves, donning gloves and getting to work if it's needed.  They cook what they grow and spend time with each other talking and working.  And laughing.  I just listen, lucky me, and join in the work, which never seems like work at all.  

So, two days ago when I had a day off, my friend and I went out into my yard, took a look around and then drove over to Cypress Garden Nursery in Monterey to see what we might see.  One mustn't hurry through a garden center on a fine day with a good friend at one's side.  This is early in the year to be looking for six packs of color spots for a spring garden, but what we did see satisfied us, and I made a few purchases.  Euphorbia was one choice, and I've put it in a fine old terra cotta pot an uncle gave me a few years ago and it has a sunny spot where it will look handsome.

Once I said good-bye to my friend that day, I set to work pruning the abutilon monster that had taken over one whole area.  That bugger just needs a dose of rain and then grows like wild, and it's always blooming. I finally pruned the roses and everything got fertilized and watered.  It felt good to do the work, all preparatory tasks and chores that will ensure a bounty of blossoms later on.

Gardening is satisfying, so much so that a sense of generosity somehow arises as the tasks are undertaken and your hands have been busy with roots, stems, tools and soil.  The earth and plants will do what they do, but to be able to facilitate the life within them to become optimal so that they flourish and thrive can be the most nourishing and calming things a person can ever do.  

Magic Garden Nursery

I leaped into the chill pool water today and felt like a carrot stick.  Crisped and curled at the ends.

After my near-carrot experience, I thought to myself:  "I need fertilizer!"  

In the general vicinity of El Estero Lake, across busy Fremont Street and behind El Estero Car Wash, lies a serene urban oasis called Cypress Garden Nursery.  It's an island of sorts, a small parallel universe, existing - thriving actually - amidst the din and clatter of street noise and industry all around.  Situating the nursery gardens in a busy commercial district gives them an immense appeal:  They feel much like a protected sanctuary where elfin magic has a much greater probability of existing.  The nursery has been there since 1952 or so and is run by a Japanese family whose charming and delightful aesthetic extends throughout the grounds. 

The appeal of gardening is that it lends itself to the creation of sanctuaries, nooks, walkways and organic beauty.  Almost all nurseries have some appeal, but this particular one really is something special.  So, take a walk with me and I'll show you around.

The Gardens lie in a microclimate "banana belt" formed by sheltering low hills and a bluff that shields cold winds from the bay.  (At the top of the bluff just to the east of the gardens are two of Monterey's oldest historic adobes, worth a walk up into the neighborhood on a sunny day.)  The even-tempered and mild climate is very easy on the plants, so everything looks vigorous and good. 

The grounds feel intimate yet occupy at least two acres, but all areas are easy to access, with outdoor areas arranged to the left of the parking area.  The shed, seedling beds and water fountains are to the right. Flowering plants are everywhere and are grouped according to drought tolerance and predominant colors. 

To the right of the parking area, you approach what looks like a low ranch-style wooden building that houses supplies of organic and ordinary chemical fertilizers, weed control products, tools, potting benches, seed packet displays and serendipitous odds and ends.  You can enter the main building or continue through a breezeway to wander throughout the greenhouse area, explore the furthest reaches of the potting sheds, or take a look at gurgling water features and wind chimes. 

Returning to the main building, you get to the heart of the place.  Chewey, the resident dog, pads around nudging wandering shoppers, hope filling her eyes, keen for morsels of food, quietly licking extended hands. 

The room is meant to display gardening implements.  I like to say it stocks imagination and play.  On table tops and benches are the oddest things, ranging from tiny, plump, winged Japanese angels; mechanical, wind-up toy shrimp; beeswax candles; earrings and jewelry with tiny organza bags; hats, hat racks and scarves; books; seeds; uniquely varied gift cards; sea glass, marbles and parlor games.  The emphasis is on light-hearted, hands-on living.  Here's what they say on their website:

"...we are a place where you can buy a really good sack of dirt, a pruning shear or just ask what could have possibly made that many holes in your coreopsis."

After a good, long, lazy doodling walk around, I assembled a pile of treasures near the checkout register:  Fertilizer (of course), crocs (had to join the nationwide craze sometime, right?), cards, a gardening book, and shears.  Also, a collection of interviews of great writers on CD (Terri Gross from Fresh Air, NPR).  Chewey gazed at my fingers with the look only dogs give, intensely wishing a treat might materialize out of thin air.  I'll try to remember to bring her a little something next time - my excuse to go back again.

I've been to Cypress Garden many times.  I've never felt sour, disappointed or out of sorts once I've crossed the portal there.  Not even close.  Matter of fact, I always feel uplifted, soothed and content after having gone. Definitely, my garden does better after each trip.  It's magic, true and certain.