Botanica Atlanta - Landscape Design, Construction & Maintenance

Walter Reeve makes a good point – gardeners have a special vocabulary not understood “on the street”, as it were.  His reference is to the old-time advice to “dress with dried blood to accelerate” the growth of a peony.  I’d add, we are then going to “stake” those peonies??

Deadhead is another phrase that either conjures images of Morticia Adams or Jerry Garcia, neither having anything to do with the gardening act nor representative of its outcome.  What about overwinter?  Isn’t that how North Dakotans and Minnesotans feel just about now? 

Photo credit: Cloud Q Conrad

It isn’t enough that gardeners have their own language.  What about the strange social customs gardeners observe?  A gardener will pull weeds at the front stoop while she waits for her gardener neighbor to answer the door.  She can’t do that for a non-gardening neighbor, who would see it as criticism, not an obsession to help. 

Gardeners can sniff each other out at the local garden center, too.  One time a fellow enthusiast strode up to me just beaming and thrust a 6” pot at me and simply said, “Pelargonium citrosum.  There are three left. Next to tomatoes.  You’ll want them.”  He wouldn’t have shoved these in any shopper’s face.  At a higher level, shoppers don’t generally “push” products with other shoppers. No one says, “You’ve simply got to get that red checked shower curtain!” to someone they don’t know.

Photo credit: Cloud Q. Conrad

There are also the rituals. Average mortals cast a wildflower mix over grass they have killed with some variety of toxin and enjoy what they sow as a kind of bonus, a Heads up in the 50/50 odds of life.  But gardeners not only dig, but double dig a new garden bed for cut flowers, vegetables, herbs and perennials.  Gardeners wouldn’t dream of starting off a new area without addressing the foundation first.  Not only that, they relish in the ritual of breaking, turning, cleaning, amending and replacing soil – and for its own sake.  The satisfaction of clearing roots, rocks, building debris and other unwelcome elements from the garden area is enough in itself. 

 Photo credit: Cloud Q. Conrad

Certainly there will be great satisfaction in the planting and nurturing of the new garden composition but every gardener – every true gardener – pauses, at least for a few seconds, to admire her “yummy” dirt likea cake just pulled from the oven, before slicing into it for planting.

Only gardeners understand the idiosyncrasies of what appears to be a distinct culture with its own language, customs and rituals.  For the rest of civilization clay-stained fingernails, calloused palms and a farmer’s tan says zealot or paid laborer.  For gardeners, these things are just part of life.

-author: Cloud Q Conrad