|
Every few months, the Merryweathers (that's the name of the herb club in Pecan Springs) get together and trade plants. Held in the garden of the Merryweather House on Ladybird Johnson Lane, the plant swap is quite an occasion, as you might imagine, for most members' gardens are full of passalong herbs. For example, old Mrs. Barnscape got her Egyptian walking onions from Alice Gommer, who traded them from Letty Funk in return for a root cutting of angelica, which Letty got from her cousin in Indiana. Unfortunately, the angelica didn't survive the Central Texas summer, which made Alice very sad, because she'd always wanted an angel in her garden. She had to console herself with some comfrey that Al Dancy gave her, with a warning. "Keep it in a pot on the porch, so you can see what it's up to," is what he said. "Once those roots go down, you'll never get them up again."
The passalong plant swap has proved a rip-roaring success for the Merryweathers. They have had to make a few rules, however, since there are inevitably a few people who take advantage. Here is this year's version.
- Put your plant in a pot. Do not bring it in a paper bag, a cardboard box, a paper napkin, or an old shoe.
- Do not bring a buggy plant. (Leave your aphids at home!) Do not bring a plant with dormant bindweed seeds in the soil, ready to germinate with joy when they are settled in their new home.
- Do not bring a plant that is at death's doorway.
- Your plant must have roots. (Do not stick an unrooted cutting in a pot and call it a plant.)
- It is not okay to bring 10 garlic cloves and take home 10 pots of herbs.
- There's no limit to the number of plants you can bring. Just be sure to label each one correctly, please. Nobody wants to take home a hardy perennial, only to have it give up the ghost at the first kiss of frost. Put your name on it, too. Your REAL name.
- Bring fresh seeds in a sealed, labeled envelope. The fair exchange is 25 seeds for a plant, NOT 5! (You know who you are.)
- Do not bring seeds that nobody took last year. Do not bring seeds that people can rake up off their lawns, such as mesquite seeds or acorns. Do not bring grass seed.
- If you bring a garden bully, for heaven's sake label it BULLY. Some people are silly enough to give them a home, but they at least ought to be warned. (A bully: Any plant that hops out of the bed the minute your back is turned.)
- No trading in the parking lot. No insider trades. And no wire tumbleweeds or plastic prickly pear.
To learn more about taking plants for a walk (and coming back with your basket full), read:
Passalong Plants, by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing
|
|