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“All
Serious Gardeners Carry a Knife” While
looking through a gardening magazine the other day I came across an ad for a
grafting/propagating knife. I looked at
it. It was nice. Underneath the photo of the knife was the
message, “All serious gardeners carry a knife.” I was shocked. They
do? How come I didn’t know this? I consider myself fairly up-to-date on
what’s happening in the world of gardening---I mean, after all, its not exactly
a high-tech industry. How did this get
past me? Is there some kind of
high-priest gardening group that’s discussing serious gardening issues that I’m
not aware of? I looked back at the ad. Thank goodness. They didn’t say, “All serious gardeners always carry a knife.” I knew I wouldn’t qualify for that one. Sometimes---usually in the spring---I use a big 8” chef knife that I bought at Target for about $9.95 to divide all sorts of perennials. But I wouldn’t really characterize this as “carry.” I pick it up, divide my plants and set it down. I suppose I could carry it around, but the thought of me carrying an 8” chef knife, with all sorts of customers walking around…I don’t know, it just seems like it would be bad for business. What would I say when a customer would approach, “Excuse me, but…um…why are you carrying a chef’s knife around?” Should I nonchalantly say, “I’m a serious gardener.”? I think they’d all take a step back…slowly… So
I suppose I could buy the grafting/propagating knife and get a nice leather
case for it and strap it to my belt, which would then immediately signify to
everyone that I was a serious gardener. I do, however, have a little problem because in the summer, when it gets
hot, I like to wear cotton shorts I also buy from Target for about $8.99 (listen,
if you can’t get it from Target, you don’t need it) but I think it would look a
little goofy with a belt haphazardly strapped around my waist so I could show
people my knife which would signify my seriousness of gardening. But let’s say I could get past that.
Then the question becomes do I really want
to be a serious gardener? Of
course I do. I really want to be a
serious gardener. I know that’s what
we’re all striving for in our lives:
to be serious gardeners. But---it’s
hard. I mean sometimes I’m sitting
there just minding my own business and something will happen, and I can’t help
it---I totally lose the seriousness of the moment. It’s like planting orange poppies. Now, you can’t really combine the color orange with anything but other bright, vibrant colors (uh oh…maybe you can and I just don’t know about it…and maybe this will come back to haunt me for the rest of my life…I know I’m not going to sleep well tonight…) But anyway, I like poppies. Orange poppies. And sometimes I’ll be planting away in a garden with real subtle colors and there I’ll be---smiling and chuckling. I know I’m not being very serious but I just know I’m going to hear about it from somebody. Or
dealing with the “planting in groups of three” rule. Sometimes I’ll have a spot in our garden, which could clearly
accept three plants of the same kind in an almost perfect triangular pattern,
and I’ll just plant only two plants in that spot. Oh that just kills me. I’ll be laughing so hard I’ll have tears in my eyes over the thought of
breaking quite possibly the most sacred rule in the book, which is clearly not
being very serious when it comes to gardening. And
there was also the time in the first year when we had just opened when a woman
had picked up a pot with a plant that was flowering. She was looking at it and I was thinking, “I can’t remember what
that plant’s name is and I don’t know anything about what its needs are.”
I was also thinking about why I was in this
business when suddenly she turned to me and said, “How long does this
bloom?” I blinked. Then I said, “Until the flowers fall
off.” She looked at me---I think hoping
I would expand on that thought. I
quickly turned and looked for another customer to help. Well, we haven’t seen that woman since so
I’m sure she doesn’t think I’m a serious gardener. And I guess I’m not. I’m a semi-serious gardener. And I’m going to try and live with that. But it gets me to thinking about those of you who are serious gardeners. When you come to Funkie Gardens, please don’t carry your knives with you. Just tell me you’re a serious gardener and I’ll believe you. I’d hate to be in a headline one day that read, “Baard Webster, openly semi-serious gardener and owner of Funkie Gardens, slashed by disgruntled and very serious gardener.” I’d hate that.
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Monday and Tuesday closed Contact Us: 618 Pearl St.
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