I don’t know what it is about leaving my garden to go out on the road, but all the disasters seem to befall it when I’m gone. One year when I was speaking at a garden show it was a major windstorm. One year it never stopped raining—yes, even in Oregon it usually stops for a bit. So with 104 days left to go before The Garden Conservancy Open Day on July 7, I’m not home and weather has been on my mind.
Arizona State University PLAnTFORM at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show
I’m giving two presentations at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show—one on Thursday and a different one on Friday. After the first one, I’ve settled in the room that serves as a speaker’s lounge and PR office. I phone my husband to let him know the first talk was well received and the room was full.
Sometimes not all the dragons are found at the show.
But before I can say anything, he tells me we have had snow. Lots of snow. Lots more snow.
The power is out, and the heavy wet stuff is weighing down all the plants. The birch trees are bent in curves to the ground, the bamboo is completely flattened. Many of the small rounded conifers have opened up and lost their shape under the snow’s weight—the Irish yew has split down the middle—and the cherry tree, the Santa Rosa plum, the variegated alder and god knows what else have all taken serious hits with huge branches cracking off everywhere.
Many firs have keeled right over in the forest—oddly, he says, both small and tall—the list seems endless. The only thing that didn’t go over, it seems, was the cryptomeria that the arborist had tied to another tree.
There’s nothing to be done. I really have to adopt the “If she dies, she dies” gardening philosophy even more than I have ever espoused before.
Katie Elzer-Peters and her plant acquisitions.
I hang up the phone and admire book author, Katie Elzar-Peters‘ collection of plants that she has purchased at the show. Maybe I need to go out on the floor and get some myself.
After all, the world is full of interesting plants. # # # #
