On the Trail

There’s a great line in an old song where the debt-burdened singer mournfully intones, "I owe my soul to the company store." In my case, it’s garden centers. It’s amazing they haven’t seized and sold off my truck in a bid to wipe clean my debt—but hey, I couldn’t drive up and buy more plants to haul home then, could I?

From April through June, I’m such a frequent fixture at garden centers from Calabasas to Carpinteria that other customers mistake me for sales staff and ask advice—which I freely give, since gardeners are not unlike war veterans. We love to revel in our victories and appreciate commiseration over our losses. There’s plenty of sacrifice, too—maybe not for God and country but surely all the money I pour into rebuilding my winter-devastated garden each year could support a nice week’s vacation somewhere frost is unheard of.

Last year we had frost, hail and blustery cold as late as April in the icy pocket of rural Agoura I call home. This year, wintry weather (especially nights in the 20s) leveled the garden’s tender as well as toughest plants in mid-November and has kept up a chokehold I’m not sure the onset of an instantaneous global warming trend centered right in my backyard could loosen.

I look at my barren gardening areas—masses of keeled-over calla lilies, pummeled pelargoniums, 75 pots of miserable, unrecognizable heaps of plant matter—and rattle off every "D" word that comes to mind: discouraged, disheartened, dismayed, disconsolate, disappointed, distressed, depressed, damned, disgusted, desperate. Even with those wondrous So-Cal winter heat waves, it’s just too risky to bring in a host of replacement plants until the days are much longer and nights much milder.

My primary garden is in a wooded, shaded area, with a few hours of intense direct sunlight available on the front of the property only. It’s there I sit daily shaking off the chill and trying to turn a blind eye to the garden’s devastation. It’s also there I notice little volunteer seedlings and weeds sprouting under the grace of warm sunlight. Down on hands and knees I go eye to eye with this inspiring phenomenon. (At that level I also get a strong whiff indicating that the neighbor’s vexatious cat has been using my gravel walkway as his litterbox.)

It’s been years since I started anything from seed, which was a regular practice while living back East. But in So-Cal the multitude of garden centers and even the local Sav-On or Vons selling bedding plants had always made the temptation of creating an "instant" garden impossible for me to resist. But while studying those teensy brave seedlings, something began to knock down—like dominoes—that long line of "D" words until only one was left standing: desperate. Desperate gardeners in chilly climes can start seeds in a sunny, sheltered area, and maybe by late Spring can catch up with the rest of the world.

Seed packets are no longer as economical as they used to be, but at least their purchase didn’t require me to take a second mortgage on my home. Of course, all the packets warned "Plant after danger of last frost" as if directly addressing one impatient idiot in rural Agoura. But I scouted the situation in my front yard. It was wind-protected and on cool days warm and on hot days the mercury on the garden thermometer boiled over.

Still, the voice of experience said, "Wait, fool." I opted to listen to the impetuous voice urging, "Go for it, now!"

During a heat wave I planted starter pots of sweet peas, hollyhocks, scarlet flax, nasturtiums, dwarf French marigolds. Seduced by their packaging, I bought the two gaudiest-looking dahlias available and planted the tubers on Valentine’s Day, an act of love or lunacy.

Nowadays I hover over all these seed flats and tuber pots looking for signs of life. Waiting and waiting for a sign. But it’s a different kind of desperation now, more of an intensely acute anticipation of that great season of rebirth that promises the freshest beauty imaginable—Spring. Moving like molasses, Spring will finally reach my vanquished garden, thawing and reviving all the broken stems and flagging foliage. Awaiting its arrival, I’ve become convinced the phrase, "Hope Springs Eternal," must’ve been coined by a gardening fool like me.

Seed Starting Tips:

Choose a sunny spot and use starter pots of at least four-inch depth to allow for strong early root development.

Work a pinch of low or no-nitrogen "bloom builder" type granular fertilizer into bottom layer of soil to promote vigorous growth once seedlings are established.

Don’t let pots dry out.

Watch for roly poly bugs, slugs, snails and ear wigs which can graze new sprouts to nubbins overnight.

Lightly cover with breathable black plastic if desired to super-heat soil and hasten germination. This I’ve found also protects from voracious robins and vexatious cats.

Read packet instructions to determine where to transplant—sun or shade; whether plants need further fertilizer or not. If a variety is noted to be sensitive to transplanting, use peat pots instead—you can bury this biodegradable pot directly into a larger pot or in-ground without disturbing roots.

On windy days place pots in a sheltered area like inside the garage or under a table to keep tender new foliage from shredding or stems from snapping in two.

Remember there’s a difference between seeds marked annual, biennial and perennial although in the most beneficial So-Cal climates I’ve found everything lasts forever—just not in my present garden’s site! But you can wait two years for some biennials planted from seed to bloom, so be patient.

Good seed choices for kids to grow include sunflowers, nasturtiums, pumpkin, squash—these germinate and grow rapidly.

Certain large, hard-coated seeds benefit from pre-soaking in warm water overnight prior to planting—morning glory and sweet pea among them.

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