Dan's Papers - June 6, 2008 - Our Garden Gurus

Let's see now. There's Butchart Gardens way west in Victoria, Canada. And Winterhur in Delaware, Longwood in Pennsylvania. Closer to home, how about Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Old Westbury Gardens? There's beauty all over the place.

I'll go out on a limb and state that North Fork gardens rank with the best of 'em. And much of the flower power is provided by Southold Town Garden Club. In an attempt to add to my usual geranium/marigold mix, I headed recently to Southold's Silversmith's Corner. Southold Town Garden Club was having a plant sale - with proceeds going to the club's scholarship program. Great! Maybe I could pick up some exotic plant like a zinnia and get the dirt on how to grow it. And help a student, too.

Well, I learned right away that STGC doesn't sell annuals at its annual sale. Only perennials. So no zinnias. But I bought a lot of other stuff and I'll tell you about that later.

Now Silversmith's Corner is right on Main Road in Southold. I got there at 8:30 on a sunny Saturday morning and already there were cars parked all over. These gardeners meant business. And they came to the right place. For many of the 35-member STGC were there to answer questions about the plants and gardening in general.

The first member I spoke with was Hilde Peters. Hilde is a 15-year member of STGC and served as president for a few years. Now she's chairperson of the scholarship committee. Hilde told me (with justifiable pride, I think) that each year STGC gives a scholarship to a local student who will study environmental science or a gardening-related field. Last year, for example, the scholarship was awarded to a young woman from Cutchogue who was working at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Riverhead.

Back to the plants. They covered tables set up in this delightful little park. Some plants were in bloom (like the armeria I chose) while others were ready to bloom - a promise of scent and color.

All the plants were labeled - a yellow sticker meant full sun, a green sticker meant shade. There was an orange sticker, too, but I can't remember what that meant. I admit to being a little overwhelmed. Most of the plants had Latin names attached to them and all I could recall was "Veni, vidi, vici." That's why the STGC woman with a big black notebook was so helpful. She looked up my plant, the armeria, and said it did well in poor, dry soil. That's my kind of plant.

I did manage to talk with Dora DiFrancisco who's president. I figured Dora could steer me to another "no work" plant. But Dora said she doesn't think of gardening as work. Indeed, she has no favorite plant. "I love them all." Like a mom with a bunch of kids.

With Dora was Denise Rathbun who does STGC publicity. I asked Denise a question not about flowers, but about weeds. How does she get rid of them? I wanted, even expected, some magical answer. But no. Denise said I have to "get down on hands and knees and pull." She said it with a smile but I knew she wasn't kidding.

For members of STGC, gardening is a year-round pursuit. Why not join them? They meet at 1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month at Southold Free Library. Even in icy January and deep-snow February. There are often guest speakers and always lots of horticultural stuff to learn. And they take trips to pretty gardens all over. I hate to say this, but one of their favorite gardens is on the South Fork.

STGC does nice things for the North Fork, too. They maintain the herb garden at Thomas Moore House, a part of Southold Historical Society's complex. I was careful to say "erb" and not herb as in Herbie. My image was damaged already because I couldn't pronounce armeria and coreopsis (I bought that, too).

Coming up for STGC is a flower show at Peconic Landing in Greenport on July 26. I think I'll go. Maybe they'll have some zinnias there. Even if they don't, I'm grateful to members of STGC. Having things on the North Fork come up pretty is what they do.