It was Henry Mitchell who wrote that defiance is what makes gardeners; I believe him. Everyone who works for me gardens. It is interesting to see what they make, and how they use their voice. This loft right downtown in Pontiac is home to Lauren Hanson; she works in the store. It is one of many buildings in the area in various states of disrepair and dereliction. But it is obvious she has an idea about how to live and garden. Defiantly.
She is young, and has adventuresome ideas. She tells me she likes living in this loft, that it has so much more presence and attitude than a suite of rooms in an apartment building. This urban location doesn’t dismay her in the least; she is energized by it. A friend built her a windowbox for the floor of her mini-deck, and she planted flowers in very lively colors. The mossed baskets in the windows take some of the edge off the bars on the windows.
When Lauren has a design idea, she figures out how to get there with materials she spots at house sales and thrift shops. The planted galvanized florist’s buckets hanging from the railing look sassy, and sensational. They are a great shape, and the silver sheen repeats the color and shine of blue sky reflecting off the windows glass. She tells me she will live here until she finds a house she can buy. In the meantime, she has made this loft a home , with a very good looking garden. All the plants are well grown, and kept up. She is of independent mind, and she has a great spirit; this is unusual people her age. She has her own ideas about what’s good, and what’s important. Even more impressive, she’s self effacing to a fault; my customers really like her. She has made it her business to learn about plants, and their care, so she can help people. She’s made an effort to become knowledgable about what we have-this you cannot hire.
Number 43 is not only occupied, but it is occupied by an urban pioneer who gardens. She has big ideas, and good things ahead of her. This very petite blond woman hauls around forty pound bags of soil like its nothing. She looks after our plants and pots. She photographs everything we have, and maintains our website. She does the work of the posting for me. Like I said, she has a fire burning all of her own making; it will be interesting to see where she takes that.
Gardeners seem to welcome every kind of life into their own. Well, ok, maybe not snails, Japanese beetles, deer, aphids and woodchucks-who loves these creatures? A gardener”s distaste for certain pests doesn’t necessarily result in weapons; many gardeners tolerate the wildlife, as we have to share our planet. But some creatures live in our gardens, and our lives, by invitation. We do a good job, looking after them, and they reward us with their unconditional love and friendship. My Jojo (formally known as George) so enriched my life. He appeared at my front door one day from a home across the street that he apparently did not like, and never left. He suffered children, carrying him around in his favorite brown paper bag. He bossed around any dog that came to visit. He lived to be 22; I lost him too soon.
Victor and Agnes were at home in the garden, but their favorite places were my drafting table, any open drawer, or anyplace I had the New York Times spread out. I inherited her along with the house and 5 acres I bought-she was the best part of the deal. Victor I did not have long, but my memory of him has been long.
Cosmo was as fine a dog as ever was. He lived to be 14, and was a fixture at the store for the last 7 years of his life. Kids loved him; I watched a child lean over into his face-and blink his eyes open and shut three times. “Do this, if you love me”, he said; he insisted to his Mom that Cosmo blinked at him. This I choose to believe. People still come in and ask for him. The last few years he actually lived at the store. Though he was deaf by then, he would start barking when my car would pull up in the morning-how did he know?
These creatures have been much a part of my gardening life, each one of them, a part of my landscape. Each of them had strikingly different personalities, but they shared the space well with me, and with each other.
Jack and Libby belonged to Rob. I thought to surprise Rob with a gift of a mini-schnauzer; no, he wanted two schnauzers. So fine, 2 schnauzers it was-brother and sister, the only two in the litter. Those two dogs were never far from Rob for the better part of 15 years. They grew up in the back of my work truck, and graduated to retail store duty in 1996. Until May of 2008; Jack was almost 14.
Libby was the last of a group that spanned some 24 years of my life. I think the last year she spent without Jack was tough, but Rob loved her up plenty and she loved Rob fiercely in return. The last 6 months of her life she mostly slept on a bed next to my chair in my office; I knew I did not have long with her. She was the last of a very fine group; her passing is the end of an era. Libby Yedinak, Sept 1994-June 2009. No matter the grief, I was very lucky indeed to have each and all of them. Any gardener knows that to everything there is a season, and the seasons turn sooner or later. But knowing this does not make it much easier; how I loved them all, and how I miss them.
Anyone who has come to Detroit Garden Works the past 15 years has probably dealt with Rob. He manages, buys, designs, arranges, and generally oversees the store. He does display, he pulls weeds, and waters. He arranges purchases from nurseries in Ohio, Tennessee, and Long Island, and every place in between. He buys for DGW all over the country, and in Europe. In recent years, he has made a concerted effort to shop our country. We two agree that every city, every region in our country, has people making beautiful work. We just need to find them. His latest purchase, custom made plant towers in a weather resistant acid washed finish that looks like lead. Many of them are his design, and they are being manufactured by a local ironworker.