Earlier this month, I was a speaker at the Rhode Island Master Gardeners symposium, along with Barbara Damrosch, Kerry Mendez and Julie Moir Mersservey, and then drove north to speak at The Vermont Flower Show. It’s no secret that gardeners are particularly vulnerable this time of year, especially at garden shows when the air is spiked with soil and hyacinths. It’s a bit too early for plants, but never too early for filling the garden shed with new tools and garden objects.
Most of the garden stuff at the shows, I find easy to pass up. I am not interested in things I don’t really need. My preference for garden tools is similar to the way I keep my kitchen counter– less is better. But at the Vermont Flower Show, I gave in to temptation at the Lee Valley Tools booth. To my delight, they offered to send anything from the catalog with free shipping. It wasn’t a huge savings, but just enough to have me filling in the order form with a long list of all the things I had long coveted: compost rake, a larger garden fork, two sizes of Fiskars: small for clipping deadheads and larger for pruning branches.
A similar thing happened the weekend before, when I decided to drive south to a lecture on Hidcote Gardens offered by the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Great Barrington, and afterwards visited my favorite garden store in the northeast, Campo de Fiori. I mostly just look, but there is an area outdoors with pottery “seconds”, that include whimsical ceramic toads, pumpkins, ornamental nuts and seed pods, and other greatly reduced, charming stuff designed by the couple who own the store and hand crafted at their shop in Mexico. I could twirl around with my eyes closed, point to anything and I would want to take it all home. From the moment you drive up in the circular driveway, meander though the garden to the front door, and step onto the sprawling front porch, nestled with curly Harry Lauders Walking Stick twigs and balls of moss you will be under their spell.
I almost escaped empty handed, until I spotted the toad on the front porch. His hind legs splayed, the way an obedient dog sometimes sits in a relaxed position, head up and waiting. Textured skin rippling down his back, and knobby eyes protruding slightly, giving a hint at an expression. I was instantly mesmerized.
Driving home, thinking “ Did I really need another toad and where will it go in the garden?” I realized that gardeners are naturally obsessive by nature. We can justify anything – plants or garden art – yet the key is to recognize our weakness before it takes over. Decorating the garden this time of year can be both dangerous and also uplifting.
