Yesterday the Bug, my oldest grandchild, and I attended a flower festival at the Grow Native Nursery, part of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens. We were assigned by Coco, my daughter, the nursery manager, to look like interested buyers. It was the first gala event that she was totally in charge of. She wanted to impress her bosses — or more likely justify her expenditures.
“Are we there yet?” was reduced to a minimum by several word games to occupy my eight-year-old passenger. A good sign when we finally arrived after the hour drive — we had difficulty finding parking.
We ambled between the aisles of native California plants, trying to look interested in one green plant over another. You know what they say about green plants, they all look alike. “The plants are organized really well by genus,” I overheard. “You can find everything easily.” The organization didn’t help me. I only knew plants by living or dead.
We weren’t the only friends and family she had commandeered. The Boy in Coco’s life wore his utility belt and was putting up signs. Another friend was strumming her guitar and roaming around the colorful tables in the patio area.
Coco was darting here and there. “You can pick up one of the salvia plants you killed,” she whispered to me in our short encounter. “We’ve got plenty.” Why couldn’t she just call it a sage like us commonfolk? She pointed in kind of in an “over there” motion, then like a flash (or the life cycle of one of my green plants), she was off.
"I'll have what she's having"
She’d made a bad assumption that I’d actually remembered what a salvia plant looked like. After the Bug and I searched unsuccessfully for what I thought she had called a Wisteria salvia, I asked one of the knowledgeable volunteers. She looked stumped, too.
“Go listen to the speaker in the greenhouse,” Coco summoned, when we stumbled onto her in our searching. “I spent a lot of money to have John Greenlee come. He’s a renown author.” Well, we were in for a treat. Before attending his lecture, I’d only heard of two words for grass — lawn and pot. The green (okay, sometimes a little brown) stuff in front of my house, I soon found out, is depleting our environment. His goal is to return California to native meadows. He talked about sedges, rushes, and Bouteloua gracilis. “I’m bored,” the Bug whispered.
Mr. Greenlee was talking “plant,” a whole other language. I couldn’t understand him enough to know if I was bored. But I did know when it came to my kids, I could endure just about anything.
After the lecture, we went on our quest once again of the salvia. “I just can’t find the Wisteria salvia,” I admitted to Coco as we were about to leave.
“Mom,” she said, a little uppity, “it’s Winnifred Gilman salvia.” I was close. It was a “W.”
“Are you a member?” I was asked as I presented my purchase to the cashier.
“Well, Colleen is my daughter,” I said proudly. She smiled at me.”
“She’s wonderful,” a group of those within hearing distance chimed in.
“I’m buying another salvia. I killed the other one when I tried to move it,” I admitted.
“Oh,” nodded one of the botanical garden employees, “they don’t like being moved.”
“But we’ve all done tried it at least once,” another smiled.
“Well, I was afraid to tell my daughter,” I said, “but then I thought of all the things she’d done as a child and I didn’t feel so guilty.”
We all learn. Usually by hard knocks. $8.32 (with a 10% discount for being her mother) wasn’t too bad for a lesson, and the opportunity to spend the day with my favorite horticulturist and my favorite eight-year-old.
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- Something old, something new
- Everything you ever wanted to be
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Sounds like you had a wonderful day!
I don’t talk plant. But I appreciate the people who do.
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