06 July 2010

Seed GROW Project #4

After returning from the wedding I was best man for in Nova Scotia, I was all like "Oh shoot, the GROW project! I didn't post!"

Then I collapsed and slept for a whole six hours! Upon waking yesterday, I checked on my "Spitfire" in the windowsill at home--it looks the same as ever, except with a few more new leaves. I eventually made my way to Mr. Yogato to check on the ones there and discovered what I had hoped wouldn't be the case--the month full of 90-plus-degree temperatures unsoftened by any respectable rainstorms (barring two brief squalls that just teased the parched greenery) took its toll on my garden.

Of course, the Mr. Yogato employees don't feel any sense of ownership over the plants (although I have been trying to encourage them to clip flowers, use the mint, eat the strawberries)--they think of the garden as just the plants of that crazy guy who comes in occasionally. Some of them, sure, but they're also Mr. Yogato's plants. If they look unhappy, then visitors (those who notice the plants, anyway) will think that Mr. Yogato doesn't care for appearances. I asked the managers to encourage the employees to water the plants when they have down time while I was gone for a week, but I'm not sure if that happened.

Anyway, enough of the details: the plants are dried out and all crisp from DC's intense summer heat and unabated dryness.

A shame.



I'm growing Nasturtium "Spitfire" for the GROW project. Thanks, to Renee's Garden for the seeds.
Posted by Kenneth Moore at 16:28

5 comments:

  1. Oh, that is a shame! Sorry to hear it. At least you still have your windowsill 'Spitfire.'

    This heat stinks, completely. I am not a fan of scorching hot summer days :-)
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  2. That is a real bummer. Glad you have at least one survivor.
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  3. Unbelievable about the lack of pride by the employees, yet I guess it is believable! So many people just don't care, and don't take pride in anything anymore. I actually am terrified about taking the kids home to MN later this summer since that is when the tomatoes and peppers come in at the rate of several lbs per day... so much so that I might not go! Last time I came home to a mess, and that was even with setting up someone to water and harvest (that they could keep!)... it still wasn't done!
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  4. That's too bad the employees not taking an interest in the plants. Hope the ones you have at home do better.
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  5. Luckily, now, the gods have smiled upon me and sent copious rainclouds to DC. The stems were still fleshy--the plants might survive?

    I can't exactly expect, I guess, the employees/owners to get attached to the garden. I can but try, but I've been learning the Public Space Gardener's credo--a gardener must be detached from his or her plants when they are being grown in an area not their own.

    I need to rethink my approach to this garden. All the plants I spend tons of money on or want to preserve because they're awesome (grapes, Heuchera, hops, my $100+ bulb garden) will probably be coming out and relocated. Only very hardy, people-resistant plants will remain to bring beauty to the public space: mint, strawberries, I guess I'll leave the Gladioluses and some of the Irises, and I'll sprinkle some perennial wildflower seeds around... Or a creeping Sedum or somesuch. Something that doesn't mind getting stepped on or not watered.
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