Sharing

Digging in with Master Gardeners

As a soon-to-be Princeton area homeowner, many people have urged me to attend the Master Gardeners Plant Expo in May when thousands of plants from Master Gardeners' gardens are donated for sale along with tomatoes and herbs. The owner of the house we are buying is a Master Gardener and asked if she could donate some plants to the Expo and if I would like to participate in the "Big Dig" on the property with her and her friends. She's still the owner and can dig anything she wants. I thought her invitation to include me was wonderfully generous and was thrilled to participate. About nine of her friends came with shovels and gloves and a real sense of camaraderie. It was quite an efficient operation and we had about four dozen pots of perennials packed up in a very short time.

Ready for the Expo

In a few weeks, people will be buying Siberian Iris, native NJ Hay-Scented Ferns, Forget-Me-Nots and Woodland Geraniums from MY garden! Just think there will be bits of it all over the area! And by thinning the plants, the garden will be healthier. 

After everyone else had left, we walked around the garden and the seller pointed out the trees and shrubs that she has planted and nurtured for 15 years. I cut myself another bunch of daffodils. Later, she emailed me a list of all the plants. Fortunately, she provided translations with the Latin names.

Plenty of daffodils to pick from

For the last couple years, I had spent most of my gardening time thinning out plants. Many of my neighbors have ground cover and bearded iris from my garden. The iris thrive in Boulder's dry climate so they needed to be thinned every three years and I had more rhizomes than friends. So I would put dozens of the rhizomes into plastic grocery bags and leave them on the hiking trail behind my house. They'd be gone in no time. So, plants from my garden are all over Boulder, too.

Just planting a garden is a way of sharing. In the 80's, I planted white and pink impatiens around an old Rhododendron in back of our brownstone apartment on West 77th Street in NYC. Neighbors who lived in the upper floors of surrounding buildings would thank me for the view I had given them.