Some gardeners take it to extremes
When Winthrop Baum wanted to improve the output of his beloved fruit trees, he became a beekeeper. He began with two hives in 1991 to pollinate his apple, peach, pear, nectarine and plum trees in Fairfield, Connecticut. Today, bees from 45 hives buzz among the trees and produce about 2,000 pounds of honey annually. An over-the-top solution? The 53-year-old says that's characteristic of him. "I've been known to take things a little far," Baum says. Some people just can't help getting carried away in the garden. A relaxing pastime becomes an obsession, turning them into compulsive weeders, fanatic plant collectors or prolific growers. They find themselves devoting large amounts of time and resources to their green pursuits. "For many gardeners, once they get established in gardening, they find the thing that really affects them," says Doug Oster, co-host of a radio show, "The Organic Gardeners," and co-author of "Grow Organic" (St. Lynn's Press, 2007), both with Jessica Walliser. "It really does become an obsession." People may be attracted to plants for various reasons, says Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturist with the National Gardening Association in South Burlington, Vermont. Some like the science of growing them. Others appreciate their beauty. Jeremy Wayne Lucas has sacrificed food, sleep and the company of loved ones for the sake of plants. A longtime gardener, he started to suspect that his hobby was taking over his life when his fiancee, Christina Anderson, accused him of loving his plants more than her. Lucas, of Jacksonville, Florida, had started buying racks of near-dead, discounted plants from a big-box store and taking them home to nurse back to health. He would normally pay $10 for a rack of 600 to 1,000 sick plants. Over the course of a year, he estimates, he brought home more than 100,000 plants. At times, his entire yard was covered with plant containers. Several times a week, he would make the 45-minute trek to the store, spend several hours loading his van with plants and then drive 45 minutes home to unload. "I just got totally addicted," the 57-year-old says. "Some of my friends were saying they couldn't stand to watch me go totally crazy." Lucas gave plants to friends, children, senior citizens and strangers. He would invite fellow gardeners over and offer them their pick. Even giving the plants away was addicting. "It was always fun to see people acting as if they were the kid in the candy shop," he says. When the store changed its policy about selling sickly plants, Lucas' buying binge came to a halt. He redirected his energies into an intensive gardening class and found a part-time job on the horticultural staff of the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens. But if the big-box store ever calls back, "I would do it again," he says. Joy Scott of Pittsburgh indulges her plant obsession every spring, pulling most of the dishes out of lighted display cupboards in the kitchen and filling them with flats of seedlings. The tiny plants thrive under the lights designed to spotlight tableware, she says. "Pretty soon I'm going to be able to convince my husband to put in a greenhouse," she says. Scott's winter contribution to her garden is mulching her neighbors' discarded Christmas trees, which she pulls from their garbage. Under the cover of darkness, she cruises the neighborhood looking for trees and loading one or two into her trunk. This year, she made about a dozen trips and snagged 15 trees that she chopped up in her wood chipper. "I don't want my neighbors to know I'm stealing their Christmas trees," she explains. "I'm getting nice free mulch." Ralph Gale's gardening passion has taken him well beyond his neighborhood outside Topeka, Kansas. Gale routinely travels to other states on behalf of his beloved day lilies. He attends seminars, swaps growing tips with other enthusiasts and checks out new varieties. "I keep purchasing more and more," says the 71-year-old. "I have about 200 different varieties." During the warmer months, he and his wife, Mary, spend about five hours a day working on their 5-acre lot, which includes two ponds, a vegetable garden, flower beds and prairie grass. Gale says he always attends the regional meetings of the American Hemerocallis Society and gets to the national conventions as often as he can. Sometimes, family obligations come between him and his plants. "We have children all over the country, so we have to go and visit them every once in a while," he says. |
