Xylem & Phloem

It is with mixed emotions that I announce my upcoming plans to leave my home in Dallas and move south to Port Aransas. Though I am sad to leave behind the home and garden that I love so dearly, I am overjoyed to be starting a new chapter with the special person in my life. BUT HAVE NO FEAR! Xylem & Phloem will not be left behind! This blog will certainly gain new life from my experiences tackling a new gardening climate -- just blocks from the beach no less!

This is a wonderful time in my life, so full of opportunity. In a few weeks, I will be graduating from Southern Methodist University with a Masters degree in Business Administration. The past two years, I have struggled to find my place among students that are determined to climb the corporate ladder. For me, getting an MBA has never once been about landing the perfect job or securing a big salary. Many classmates talk about dreams of driving fancy cars, owning big mansions, and leading Fortune 500 companies. But my aspirations are far more basic. For me, going to business school was not about getting a prestigious degree. It was about acquiring the tools that will help me create a business that makes a difference and that makes me happy. Perhaps it will be a gardening business. Or maybe a non-profit. Whatever form my entrepreneurial aspirations take, I will always be grounded by my love for gardening and tending the land. When you garden, nothing is more awe-inspiring than the evolution of one tiny seed into a magnificent, blossom-laden plant. No Bentley, or mansion, or corner office will ever satisfy me as much as digging my hands into the earth come springtime. For this, for my love of gardening, I am so very grateful.

So please join me as I embark on a very exciting new adventure. I can't wait to share my coastal gardening experiences with you!

Callie 

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 I can't quite explain my hiatus from Xylem & Phloem. Perhaps it was the grueling semester in business school. Perhaps it was the poor performance of my new perennial bed for which I had such high hopes. Perhaps it was the alignment of the planets. Whatever the cause of my absence, it is now time to return and reconnect with the pursuit that brings me such joy.

Last week I spent a few minutes turning the compost pile and that simple act was enough to remind me why I garden and why I choose to spend my free time outdoors. My muscles enjoyed the strain of handling the pitchfork. My nostrils filled with the comforting scent of freshly-turned soil. The afternoon sun, low in the winter sky, warmed my back as I hunched over the pile of composting yard waste. For many Dallasites, this might sound like indentured servitude. For me, it's a calling I can't ignore for much longer.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Callie 

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Oooh, I love it when people call a Garden God's bluff. (Garden Gods is my affectionate term for the two older Texas gentleman that have their own garden radio shows - i think you know who I'm talking about - and treat everyone else like idiots when they ask a simple gardening question).

Check out this website. The site owner goes to great lengths to debunk Howard Garrett's claims that adding lava sand to your garden is beneficial. Whether or not this guy's correct is beside the point. Believing everything that "the experts" tell you about gardening is like failing to get a second opinion when the doctor tells you the softball-sized lump on your noggin is nothing to worry about. Furthermore, why are all the garden gurus men? P. Allen, Howard, Neil...

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I am always stunned at the price of ceramic plant pots at garden centers. It's clay and water, folks! Needless to say I was THRILLED when I found large terra cotta plant pots for sale at IKEA this weekend for $3.99. No joke! They're on sale now, but their normal price is only $8.99. For those of us that are in constant need of new containers for our plant splurges, these pots are a wonderful solution for the budget-conscious gardener. Click here to find an IKEA store near you.

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One of my dreams is to set up a school garden program here in Dallas. Gardens would be design and built by volunteers and then tended by school students with supervision from additional volunteers. This would be a great way for Master Gardeners to get in their volunteer hours... Does anyone know of an existing program here in Dallas? Or, do you know who I might need to contact to get something like this going? I was re-inspired by a similar program that is going on now in Houston.

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Tonight was one of those quintessential summer nights... Slightly above 80 degrees, breezy enough to make the trees whisper, and clear enough to see a few bright stars and planets. In one word: heaven. These are the summer nights that I remember from my youth. Home from school for the summer, my eyes tired and bloodshot from swimming in a chlorinated pool all day, I am blissfully exhausted and keeping myself awake long enough to enjoy a dinner of fresh broiled shrimp and corn on the cob. Aside from being nearly eighteen years older, tonight was not far from my happy memories of summers past.

 The best thing about living less than five minutes away from my parents is being able drop in for dinner at a moment's notice. Is that a great thing for my empty-nesting parents? Maybe not. But I suspect that my mother added two more mouths to her count when shopping at the grocery store today. Just like her children, she loves nothing more than a house full of laugher and happy voices.

Tonight was made even more special by the fact that our entire family was gathered together for dinner: mom, dad, brother, sister, three dogs and one cat. We fired up the grill and had a spectacular feast of grilled squash and zucchini, Alaskan halibut, grilled asparagus, and fresh cantaloupe. What could be more summery than that???

 After dinner, Molly the Wonderdog and I hopped in the Subaru and headed back home with the sunroof open and all of the windows down, letting in the sweet night air and blairing some good ole' classic rock. Once home, we immediately headed back to the garden, joined by Xylem & Phloem's fearless felines, Max and Milo. The happy family finally reunited, we lounged under the darkening evening sky, watching fireflies and listening to the gurgle of my new garden fountain.

All at once, I understood the meaning of peace. When your mind can finally be still, free of anxiety or doubt, filled with nothing but an overwhelming sense of calm and happiness. 

Gardening is often depicted as a daytime hobby, and we sometimes forget to address the nocturnal benefits of creating a magical environment on our land. When the sun sets, what is there left to do as a gardener but enjoy the quiet still of our domain? The splash of a garden fountain, the sweet fragrance of night-blooming plants, the cadence of crickets... There are so many reasons we garden. One of the most important is surely the ability to enjoy our horitcultural paradises under the celestial blanket of nightfall.

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It is spring. Thus, I clean. Today's rainy weather provided me with no good excuses for shirking my domestic duties, so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work cleaning out my home office. In a very short time, I filled up an embarassing number of grocery bags with old papers and magazines to take out to the recycling bin. Per ritual, I closed my eyes and wiggled my nose hoping that the bags would take themselves outside, but my magical powers are apparently on hiatus this week.

On my way out to the alley, I came upon a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. Its tiny, featherless body contorted from the fall, the chick lay motionless on the wet concrete. All at once, I felt overcome with sadness for this Darwinian moment that had just played out on my patio. Knowing well that this was all part of the natural cycle, I still had an overwhelming desire to rewind time and put the baby safely back under its mother's wing. I actually started to worry about the mother bird, fretting over her empty nest.

Sometimes I wish there was a more profound word for the act of tending to a garden. "Gardening" will never do justice to this crazy passion of ours, a hobby/lifestyle/obsession that revolves around the cycles of life and death, the setting and rising of the sun...the rotation of the Earth even! Experiencing a swell of emotion over the baby bird today reminded me that no matter how many tricks or techniques or tonics we apply to our little garden worlds, sometimes we just have to accept the hand that the Earth dealt us and appreciate the aphids, or the difficult clay soil, or the squirrels that steal our tomatoes. We are mere stewards of the land. And some of us just happen to love stewarding more than others.

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