Excerpt

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Selected Excerpts: (Check back, excerpts will change occasionally)

From Extension Master Gardeners, pg 34

Stemming from the Middle Ages, the term “Master” brings forth all kinds of respect, as it brings forth images of both a very skilled expert (as in a master craftsman) and also someone in authority (as in the Master of a ship). We all view a Chess Master (or Chess Grandmaster) as reaching the pinnacle of that sport. We refer to someone as Master if we follow their teachings or beliefs. To be labeled a “Master Gardener” sounds so very important, doesn’t it? You’ve got a BS in horticulture or an MS in landscape design? Big deal, I’m an Extension Master Gardener. You’re a Doctor (PhD) in plant pathology? Oh, you’re not a real Doctor then. But, oh, to be a Master Gardener. Many horticultural authorities list that credential as their bona fides, including Paul James, HGTV’s “The Gardener Guy.” Just check the Internet for the many blogs who seem to feel that being a Master Gardener makes them a universal expert in all things green.

But, ask yourself, what does being an Extension Master Gardener really mean? Do you know? I, myself, lusted after the title for years. The local Extension Office held the training classes year after year on Friday’s in a given season, and due to work and the need to earn a living, I was unable to attend. Then finally, they announced a series of evening training sessions and I applied before the ink on the newspaper notice was dry. Finally I had my chance.

From Of Native Lawns, pg 152

There is a fad in modern gardening circles to move away from high maintenance, over-fertilized, over-insecticided, over-watered bluegrass and fescue lawns in favor of native turf grasses, and for once I’m right in the forefront of fashion. I can quote all the bad press about how suburban lawns require more fertilizer, water and insecticide than grain farming in the United States and how poor a choice it is to grow Kentucky Bluegrass in most areas of the country and how much time we waste fertilizing and continually mowing our picture-perfect green lawns. I know people who have irrigation systems and who mow acres of lawn twice a week and I think they’re nuts. But before you get a picture of me as a wild-eyed Al Gore devotee, you should know that my primary reason for choosing a native lawn is laziness. I don’t like to traipse around behind a fertilizing cart, I don’t like to drag hoses all over the lawn to water, I’m too frugal to install irrigation and pay for water, and I especially don’t like to mow. Let me emphasize that if there’s one thing I’d put at the top of the fruitless list, it’s mowing the lawn. Forget environmentalism, native lawns save labor, or so the story goes.

From Time to Rest, pg 182

I sat down in the garden yesterday, for the first time this past summer, choosing for my sojourn the cement bench in the middle of my rose garden. It was a dreary Saturday, filled with drizzle and clouds, and I’d finished the planned garden chores, the new ‘Morning Light’ (Miscanthus sinensis) grass clump planted, the volunteer Cottonwood tree moved, and the patio swept. And so, at the end of the chores, I plopped down and experienced the quiet peacefulness, broken only by the distant sound of the highway and the more distant cheers of the Kansas State University crowd at the football stadium. The fall rampant bloom of the roses filled the immediate vicinity with color and from fifty feet away came the achingly glorious scent of the Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis paniculata). I sat for a moment and gazed at the figure of a statue across the garden and I didn’t think, I tried to just be.

Do as I say, not as I do; Sit in your garden! I unfortunately spend little time sitting in my own garden. As it is a young garden, I’m always in the middle of an expansion or plan that allows me little time for enjoyment of the growth I’ve wrought. There’s always something to do, another bed to prepare, the compost to turn, or a plant to divide. And the new plants, always planting new plants. I’m a serial impulse plant buyer and I confess that I buy without thought to where it will be placed. For me, gardens are the plants. Excuses, Excuses.