Clackamas Community College

A Returning Nontraditional Student in Horticulture

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As the days grow darker, I’m retreating into the comforts of home and am nesting more and more in what feels comfortable. I’ve retreated into what some might call my own version of a cloister or maybe even an ivory tower, but in reality, I feel like I never get anything done and am moving very fast through many things.

At home—at Campiello Maurizio—I’m rearranging furniture, and tossing things I no longer need. This is happening physically, metaphorically, and psychologically. Going forward, I’m painting walls and building comfortable areas to share with close friends and family who are showing more that they genuinely care about me, and I can be more free to choose to safely care about them. The goal here is to keep pushing myself to earn and do more. I’m very tired of “just getting by” and being in debt. Chronic health issues are expensive and draining on many fronts, and I know that I deserve more, that I can do more, so I’m huddled down, resting between what I can only call massive efforts, and I’m open to new opportunities even though it’s sometimes scary to me.

The recent promotion to Production Manager at Secret Garden Growers is also just the right fit for me. Limiting myself to one nursery job was a good idea for clarification of purpose, and just to feel more focussed on what matters to me… I want to get nice plants into the hands of gardeners and into gardens as quickly as I can.

It is not easy though to work 30 hours a week at a nursery and with my seeds, then also to go to school at Clackamas Community College. I’m determined though to earn my AAS in Horticulture. Sometimes I think it is a crazy plan, then on other days I feel like I was made to be the ideal nontraditional student.

To make this all work though it means less time for writing, and less time for anything lazy and fun. It means going through a lot of personal growth, pushing myself when it’s very uncomfortable, and learning anything and everything I can. I feel refreshed in my awareness of beginner’s mind daily, and I relish learning what I don’t know yet, and I’m learning a lot for a second or third time.

And like the garden, I will grow better, and more beautifully, with all of this attention to pruning and editing.

Change and growth are beautiful things.

Before returning to Italy, let’s review last winter…

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About last winter, well, it was divine. Between the fair weather, a class in horticulture, and time spent with friends over long meals, it was a time to indulge in additional personal growth and discovery while lingering to get to know those around me better.

What I mean to say here is that my new mast cell medication was working mightily well—as were all of the other therapies. This plant of mine felt like its backbone was strengthened and buds began to form. (Now months on, I can see the growth.)

When we left for Italy, my health was better than it had been in some ways for years, but I know now that the neuropathy medication I was just given upon my return should have been instituted before our departure. Years of swelling have definitely taken their toll on my nerves.

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Agapetes serpens.

This winter was about propagation. Much joy was had when these Agapetes serpens cuttings taken from my friend Kate’s plant continued to bloom and bloom under lights in my basement.

They’re still alive and have hardened off outdoors and I look forward to potting them up this week or the next. Bloom on little troopers!

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Not such a bad year on Instagram.

This winter I continued to socialize on Instagram with other garden and plant lovers. It was through this platform we ended up meeting my new friends in Venice.

For anyone who has a difficult time falling asleep it can be a tool that can successfully create thoughtless thoughts. You can count sheep, or scroll through plant pics. Take your pick!

Many of the people I chose to follow are in Europe and I look forward to seeing their mornings as I slowly let the weight of my head really force itself into the pillow. Ok, maybe seeing their delicious morning repasts may sometimes widen an eye and a growl may grow from somewhere deep inside of my stomach, but then I move on to the next photo and set aside that fleeting idea of a sunny morning in Greece.

Seaview, WA
Just south of Oysterville, WA
Oysterville, WA
Oysterville, WA
Near Cape Disappointment, WA

This past winter Kate and I decided to take a little coastal garden tour in January. We met up with Flora our friend over at Tangly Cottage Gardening Journal. (If you follow the link, you can read more about the gardens we saw that day.) Surprisingly, the weather was decent for us and in the end I was able to eat my beloved oysters.

From there we travelled south to Yachats and the Gerdemann Botanic Preserve.

If you’d like to read a great blog post about that location I suggest this post from my friend Evan over at the The Practical Plant Geek. (He wrote several posts about it and of course I’ve yet to post any photos at all.)

Crocus ‘Pickwick’
Streptocarpus
LuLu climbing the arbor
Embothrium coccineum seeds
Cyclamen hederifolium
Camellia ‘Bob Hope’
Camellia ‘Black Magic’
Looking out the dining room window
Cyclamen coum [silver leaf form]

While preparing for departure, the garden grew and things bloomed while more botanical Latin was memorized and I worked to pass my plant ID course in the horticulture department at Clackamas Community College.

Friends were made, I hosted a talk here in my house about rare ferns given by an expert in such things, and the anticipation of the impending journey grew in me, the deviation from my medical routine grew more exhilarating, and soon we crossed the big pond.

More on that next time…