When we completed building our third & newest demonstration garden bed at the nursery, right up front, as you walk in, it was my job to plant it. I ran around the nursery with my red Flexible Flyer, collecting all my favorite California wildflowers, cottage garden annuals & some of my favorite poppies that were ready at the time. I wheeled my wagons to the bed, leaned on a shovel & admired the beautiful, fresh, rich soil. I’m thinking, “Wow, this is the first thing everyone’s going to see when they walk in – it better be good.” Staring & pondering the blank canvas before me I began to have, well … issues.

I am by nature a shy gardener. Visitors often say, “Oh, your garden must be fantastic. Can we come see it?” I respond quickly with some excuse about why they can’t – “toys all over the backyard” (true), basketball hoop & resultant destruction in the front yard” (also true), “dogs” (no explanation necessary). But really, I’m shy about my garden. It’s a warm & cozy place where I can find peace & solitude. It’s my soft entry into the world each morning. It’s the little corner of the planet I share with Mother Nature. It feels intensely personal; a garden that’s just for me, complete with birds, butterflies, my bunnies … broken paving, crumbling walls & my son’s tennis shoes left out in the rain.

My garden delights me with a multitude of surprises, though I’m perfectly happy as long as a
single flower is blooming. I’m a flower girl. Really, that’s all I need. But it’s not a show garden. You know, you read those garden magazines, too, with all those fastidiously manicured estate gardens. All posed & perfect, like fashion models, all imperfections hidden or cut out of the picture. Gussied up for the moment, like models, they’re perfectly posed for the viewers, for others. For the masses. Standing in front of that nursery bed, I’m suffering from Better Homes & Gardening-itis.

To make matters worse, I’m often invited to stunningly fabulous gardens by famous garden designers. 100-acre spreads in Napa Valley or huge mountaintop mansions in Marin with gazillion-dollar garden budgets & huge maintenance crews. Waterfalls, freshly planted mature palm trees, giant urns, hand carved caves & huge local boulders moved about on whim. These garden designers (friends & fine folk) are going to visit me and see this garden bed!! OK, now I’m panicking! Garden designer-itis too!

I’m starting to stress. OK, I tell myself, no urns, no waterfalls or palm trees –that’s cool, perfectly fine. It’ll still be pretty. Placing my 4” pots all around, I try to imagine what will be blooming when. Will this plant be OK next to this plant? Will people laugh that I’ve planted pink flowers next to orange? I dig in half of the plants, all flowering plants. Wait, I have no “bones!” No shrubs or “vertical accents.” I run around the nursery searching out “vertical accents.” How about “contrasting foliage?” Oh no! I forgot the contrasting foliage plants! I run around some more. It’s too early, they’re not ready yet. I start to obsess. I walk endlessly around & around the bed in a daze, unable to proceed. Planters-block. What am I doing? What is my idea here? (Like I ever needed an idea before now) & jeasy-peasy, where’s my focal point?! AAAARGH!

Just as I’m about to give up, I am mercifully rescued by Josh McCullough, our new retail manager, sweetheart & major funny-guy. I tell him my plight. He laughs at me. “ Don’t worry, just stick the rest of them anywhere. It ‘ll look great,” he says.

“Really?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he reassures me. “It never comes out like you envisioned it, but when everything blooms it always looks great.”

“You think so?” I say. “You’re right, what am I worried about?”

“Yeah, and you know,” he says, “you really need some more contrasting foliage.”