Gardening,
A Lifetime Obsession
By
Gaird Hamilton
National
Award of Merit winner
Pat and I
had both grown up in the country. She was from Southern Oregon and I
was from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California.
In 1965 after being married four years, living in a series of rentals,
and having a growing family, we wanted more space. I was working out
of the area, but on the weekend I spotted an ad in the paper for a house
with acreage. Pat checked it out on her own during the week, I looked
too the next weekend, and thanks to the G I Bill, in a couple of months
we were moving in. The place was four acres with about half of it basically
level and open, the other half was forested and sloping down to a creek.
The level part had been made that way with a bulldozer with the idea
of making a mobile home park, an idea which fell through for the previous
owners. The house was rather small for our family, but the place was
like an open canvas for us.
There was virtually no landscaping of any sort. The ground was a sandy
type soil and because of the topsoil being rearranged, there was large
areas with not much organic matter or top soil. In fact our first tiny
vegetable garden attempt was so pathetic that we cooked our entire crop
of Swiss Chard in our smallest saucepan, and savored both bites. Reflecting
our country roots though we were soon hard at work planting things.
I had come from fruit orchard country so I was ready very soon to plant
fruit trees. Pat was more into vegetable gardening and soon had a very
large one. We learned as we went since the climate here in the cool
coastal zone of Northern California was not like the climate of our
childhood, and some of our old favorite varieties were not good here,
while others were exceptionally well adapted.
At the same time, we got busy planting perennials, annuals, bushes,
and trees. Our first rose wasn’t long in being planted and we
put it right next to our back door. The second rose that we planted
was a new one back then and was a floribunda called “Apricot Nectar”,
and it is still a survivor after all of these years. It had to be moved
several times due to enlarging the house and other landscaping changes,
but through all of that it has continued year after year to bloom beautifully.
When we built an addition on which doubled the size of our house, we
had to get rid of many of our original orchard trees, but we started
a new orchard out front. My Father had built an addition on our home
when I was a boy and had improved all of the rest of the house. It had
been a great experience of my youth, and I had always dreamed of being
able to do it myself. Having a great helpmate like my wife, Pat, made
it even more of a pleasure for both of us. The first year as winter
was arriving, we were ready to put on the asphalt shingles on the roof.
We were glad to have the help of my brother and also our very nice elderly
neighbor up there on the roof, racing against the arrival of the first
big rain. In the meantime our rose garden was getting bigger up to a
certain point. We usually had about 30 bushes of floribunda and hybrid
tea roses. At first they lined the walk out of the front door of our
smaller house. Then when we built on they were moved to the back year.
With many children to raise, a nice sized orchard, a big pen of blueberries,
raspberries, loganberries, and a huge garden , plus a lot of lawn area,
we just didn’t have the time to get more roses than that.
I worked as an Engineering Technician for Cal Trans until 1972 when
my Father died suddenly of the flu turning to pneumonia. After my Uncle,
his Brother died just three months later, I told Pat that I had to get
a job where I could be at home during the week and see our children
growing up all the time instead of just the weekends. I got a job then
working first as a bucker in the woods, and then as a timber faller.
I was working a lot harder, and sometimes I had a long ways to drive
to get to my job, but I was able to spend all of my nights at home with
my family. Later one of our sons worked with me for a number of years
and that was really a good experience. Working together creates an even
closer bond, and makes each person understand the other better.
As the years went by, due to environmental activists and diminished
supplies of old growth trees, I was working on smaller and smaller trees,
and driving farther and farther to do it. By then I had my own small
cutting contract outfit. We were also caring for my older Brother who
was handicapped and needed an increasing amount of care. When I was
turning 62 it was getting too hard for Pat to care for Jerry all of
the time while I was gone working. I decided that it was time for me
to retire and spend all of my time at home helping Pat. She was in total
agreement.
It didn’t take long for me to start taking a harder look at our
roses. We both had always loved them, but it was frustrating the way
that some of them would have rotten blooms instead of nice ones in our
cool climate. I heard about the American Rose Society and decided to
join to find out what we needed to know. Shortly after that the President
of the Humboldt Rose Society called us and invited us to join.
Thinking that we could learn from the experience of the rose growers
of the area, we joined. Pat made me promise that we would not be officers
or anything, but later when we got to that stage, she relented on that
provision.
When the next June came along, we entered our first rose show, and you
might say that we were hooked. We were lucky enough to win a “Princess
of Show.” Entering rose shows definitely made us learn to be better
rose growers. Each year we look at those lovely pictures in the rose
catalogs and soon roses are on their way. We have discovered hundreds
of varieties which do well here, and have shovel pruned many who don’t.
We set a limit for size of garden at 300 roses, then 500 roses. Now
we have 700 roses and while everyone thinks that our place looks wonderful,
no one knows how we can do all of our tasks. We don’t either,
but we do know that a rose garden is about the best place to work that
there is for true peace and tranquility.
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