Months ago, while visiting Baldassare for his Garden Conservancy Open Day, I flipped through the surplus North American Rock Garden Society seeds that the Siskiyou Chapter had left. At that time, I wasn’t really propagating with many seeds and I felt sad. I missed the good old days when I could barely stand, had no money, but I could shop for, and grow as many seeds as I wanted—NOT!
But I was missing working more with seeds… I just had to graduate and get a new life going before I could add on anything else.
Having chatted with him about the process of their Siskiyou chapter packing seeds, then chatting with another volunteer about it, I thought long and hard about whether I’d volunteer to help them for the first time this winter.
I have a history of overcommitting, and I live a life of chronic illness disability, padded with good intentions and a wild ambitious drive to achieve. So I sat on the idea for a long time, and waited until my new position started at Little Prince of Oregon. I wanted to learn the pace of the job duties, and that only made me realize how badly I’d need seeds back in my life—on my own time and terms—when I’m not at work.
So I said yes, I’m in. Then I filled Evan in and invited them too.
Days before our arrival I let Baldassare know that we’d not be able to stay for as long as we’d hoped. A day or two later he let us know that their box of seeds would be arriving later than they’d hoped.
We left for Medford (in Southern Oregon) on Friday morning hoping for the best. Luckily, we’d been invited to dinner on Friday evening, and were invited to visit the garden of the late Kathy Allen on Saturday morning. Since Evan had never been, I was excited to take them.
Maybe this trip would remain NARGS focussed after all! Woohoo!!
After our garden visit, and a fun lunch at Tekkamaki Sushi, the box arrived late on Saturday afternoon. We dug right into working as soon as it arrived.
Chapters receive part of the carefully arranged and alphabetized list annually. Each box comes with everything they’ll need to keep the packets organized so they can be shipped next to the center from which orders will be processed, packed, and shipped. There was a master list where we could check things off, pre-labeled narrow vertical manilla envelopes for us to take seed from, to repackage, and then those envelopes were placed back in them for dispersement. We had stickers, glue sticks, envelopes, and fantastic instructions covering our many questions.
As we worked, we talked of many things, both Evan and I have a lot going on right now in terms of our nursery work and dedication to the profession of horticulture. Baldassare made us some food, and by the end of the evening we’d finished quite a few packets. I committed to doing a few more the next morning with Siskiyou Chapter Co-Chair Jean Buck (seen in the featured photo above with Evan and me). This gave Evan and Baldassare time to walk through the garden to collect cuttings for Evan to bring back.
As I worked that evening though, the usual regrets rose up, and we talked about the mourning I still go through when it comes to NARGS. Those close to me know that I would have entered into the world of horticulture through that door, but I’ve only written lightly about that in the post I wrote when the boys visited at Cistus.
Being the daughter of a well-known outdoorsman, I always thought I’d have lots of adventures like my dad. As cliché as this sounds, life had other plans for me, and I’m still working to accept that now.
Before I say more, keep in mind, you don’t have to be a crazy outdoors person climbing mountains, traveling the world, or building gardens made of incredible stone to purchase and grow NARGS seeds. So please be sure to take a look at their offerings this season, and consider joining to participate in growing and collecting seeds for their program next year.
Months after the installation of the new crevice/rock garden at Cistus Nursery in June of 2022 Paul sent me this photo. I don’t think I’ve ever posted it because it’s one of those awkward moments. Sometimes in gardening you’re part of the in-group, but typically, we enter these groups as part of the out-group. How one moves from one group to the other happens over time and can be complicated—like any other human relationship.
When it comes to my being acquainted with the rock/crevice gardening pros of my generation, I still very much feel like a member of the out-group. Much of this is on me, and when I sat there stuffing envelopes with my head down thinking about it, I remembered that school, physical therapy, and hard work were all part of my progress towards patching up this part of my life. After all, meeting and speaking with them was part of the impetus for me to go back to school to do more.
My experiences with different plant societies and groups goes back many years now. They too have been a large part of my education. Each has its charms, and yet they share the same problem. Aging group members are all seeking to revitalize their memberships. Multi-generational involvement is needed.
I encourage any and all of you to try to go to meetings, and participate. I also understand that younger folks live with different economic burdens and many simply will not own large plots of land to garden on. At least with NARGS, many plants can be grown in containers. Keep that in mind.
Our local chapter of NARGS reached out to me, giving me a membership here in Portland. I went to one meeting, one where I was paid to give a talk about my trip to Plant Delights to see the work Jeremy had done, but I could not commit more of my time. I’ve not yet returned, but my heart is there.
For me, I need to reconcile the past with the present, and I feel like this wound of chronic illness and disability in the face of what I think of as one of the more ableist of gardening styles, is my own to tackle. I’m trying hard to creatively manifest my solution to disrupt something I sense may need a little bit of a natural eruption on my part, but that idea has not yet struck.
My physical therapist and I talked around the subject yesterday. All of my physicality is saved for work, and yet, I’m not stronger. I actually had to give up a day and go down to 4 days a week because I cannot heal from the work while having hereditary angioedema, and issues with myalgia and myofascial pain. He still thinks I could be more physical, and I literally *pray* that in 2026 I will be able to hike more than the handful of trails I’ve attempted during the last 3+ years. To be honest though, I’m getting tired of this fight, and that makes me sad, but I think I have one big push left in me.
So I’m resolving to continue touting the plant societies, to join for the friendship, and enrichment. Not only will you be able to learn about more plants, but folks share with one another too. A gift economy is important for building trust and bonds between groups of people, and for those like me, it HAS helped to soothe feelings of inequality. I can’t say enough about the mutual support. It really has helped me over the years, and I hope that the plant groups I love will continue to thrive.
And a BIG thank you to all of the volunteers who’ve put so many hours into running this event. Everyone I know waits for it annually. You’re the real plant heroes helping to keep seeds in circulation. Thank you so much.
Plant Societies that I LOVE:
American Horticultural Society
Ann Loves Plants 
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