Garden Bloggers Book Club

I am excited to participate in my first Garden Bloggers Bookclub. This month, one of my favorite gardeners is the focus of our reading. Elizabeth Lawrence was a wonderful gardener and writer. Well-known in the mid-twentieth century, she was an expert in her field. Most inspiring to me is the ability Elizabeth had to reach out to others. She is a symbol for the camaraderie gardeners achieve.

Lawrence corresponded with gardeners all over the country and encouraged others to send her information about what bloomed in her garden when. Her book The Little Bulbs focuses on one special relationship she had with a gardener who lived half a country away. In her preface, Lawrence state, "There are other gardens and gardeners that must enter into this tale. Some I have seen, and some I know only from letters or books, but all these gardens are as real to me as my own." She believed that, "Gardening, reading about gardening, and writing about gardening are all one; no one can garden alone."

My first exposure to Lawrence was through the recently published book Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters edited by Emily Herring Wilson. Through their personal correspondence, the book reveals the relationship of Lawrence and Katharine S. White who was the wife of famed Charlotte' Web author E.B White. (Mr. White is well-known to me and is a favorite of my daughter through this book, The Trumpet of the Swan and Stewart Little. All of his stories encourage children to respect nature, which is especially attractive to me.) As an archivist who has spent a good portion of her adult life handling original historical materials, I am especially excited by the format of Two Gardeners. Next to a diary, personal correspondence digs deepest into the psyche of the writer. It offers the reader an honest look at a person. through original documents we can form our own opinions about those we study, rather than relying on the observations of another writer.

Two Gardeners provides valuable information about the history of gardening, gardening methods, well-known gardeners from the mid twentieth century, and the book is a valuable resource for women's studies.

Here is one of my favorite excerpts. I love it for despite being acknowledged by others as an authority, Lawrence is humble. She encourages White's gardening efforts by playing down her own expertise. and states in a letter from 1959, "I can't answer your questions because I don't know the answers. Far from being an expert, I am the most causal gardener. I don't even own a spray. When things get sick I destroy them. I haven't divided daffodils for years. I just put out things and let htem take their chances. When I write about the way things should be done, I quote an expert. I am a writer. In my garden everything grows on top of everything else and I let them fight it out...I have never found any ground cover that is satisfactory for little bulbs." It gives me hope that I can be a "gardener" too. This statement encourages me to experiment and try my best. (I should also note that White too was an experienced gardener. She is best knownby gardners for her column in the New Yorker called "Onward and Upward.")

I must end this by explaining that Ms. White was a typical northern "Yankee," while Lawrence was a southerner. This divide made their relationship even more special. It shows how a garden camaraderie can bridge gaps, making geography and other incidentals irrelevant. Gardening makes our differences something to cherish and explore. I have learned this from the camaraderie I am developing with my own international garden friends on blotanical

Little Bulbs

My mother sent me an e-mail yesterday with "The Daffodil Principle." (This story is available as a book written my Jeroldeen Edwards. Since the "Daffodil Principle" is posted all over the web, I am hoping that reiterating the story here is not copyright infringement. Please everyone, go out and buy Ms. Edwards book if you like her story. The illustrations look lovely.)

The Daffodil Principle

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead "I will come next Tuesday", I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

"Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"

My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.

"But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."

"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, "Daffodil Garden." We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight.

It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.

That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one baby-step at time--and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world ...

"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.

She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?"

Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting.....

Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house
Until you go back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a divorce
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you die...

There is no better time than right now to be happy.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
So work like you don't need money.
Love like you've never been hurt, and, Dance like no one's watching.

If you want to brighten someone's day, pass this on to someone special.

I just did!

Wishing you a beautiful, daffodil day!

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin..

***

So, I got curious and decided to do a bit of research. I learned that this kind of story is called a glurge. "What's a glurge?" I asked myself. According to the yawictionary glurges are " Sickeningly sweet stories with a moral, often hiding slightly sinister undertones..."[none of those undertones here that I can see] "Imitative of the retching that might be induced by stories of this kind." LOL! I don't usually get taken in by "sickeningly sweet," but this is garden related so I'm a sucker. Plus mom said this story reminded her of me. How could I not get taken by something so heartfelt from my mom?!

The story also reminded me of a non-fiction book that I am reading entitled "The Little Bulbs" by Elizabeth A Lawrence. Miss Lawrence was a well-known gardener and garden author in the mid-twentieth century. She had correspondence with many gardeners around the country, including a man who maintained a plot of land that sounds a lot like the one in "The Daffodil Principle." Turns out they are not the same person. Evidently this passion for daffodils is not so rare.

I imagine myself planting one bulb at a time to achieve a yard filled with daffodils, or tulips, or hyacinth...My friend Regina, who I am working hard to turn into a gardener, nearly burst yesterday when we were in her yard and she discovered that the bulbs she planted last autumn came up. She was amazed. She decried, "There's hope for me after all! I didn't kill them! I can be a gardener!" Nothing can awaken the passion like those easy to care for, spreading bulbs. Long live "The Daffodil Principle!"