Two days ago, my buddy and I took a 12-hour road trip to load and overfill a big truck with rare trees, shrubs, and ribbon ferns I’ve longed to get into our nursery for years.
While we drove and loaded the truck, it rained cats and dogs. Driving back, we were cold with the a/c or hot without it and sticky either way.
This whole week's been like that. We got some great plants, but the rain stopped at the NC/SC line. Right at the new Buc-ee's, we went from wonderful rain to smog-thick humidity. That’s South Carolina.
Back at the farm yesterday, on a steaming hot morning, I repotted all those big, heavy, wet plants. I heard a dog bark. So, with leafy bits, stinky organic fertilizer, and my T-shirt sticking to me, I went to the gate to see who'd pulled up.
When you live on a farm in the South, people just pull up. These were folks I knew. I knew to keep the conversation on farm and flowers. But they brought up the hate. But these supposed big “Christians” brought up racist, hate-filled xenophobia, and I wouldn't let it pass.
I'm not going into all that now.
But I thought of all those plants I'd just brought down. I thought of all the monotonous, dirty, hot, behind-the-scenes jobs in nurseries; only folks with an outstanding work ethic and folks who can turn mundane, exhausting work into laughs and a little fun do it. There are very few of us white guys on any nursery work team.
If you buy a potted-up Chrysanthemum at the Food Lion, remember that a dozen hands touched it in its life—tanned, immigrant hands. If you buy chicken, onions, bushes, tulips, peaches, or paper towels, then you know what to do: Thank our hard-working immigrants.
I can only speak about my industry, agriculture, the largest in South Carolina. Consumers may not see the dark, constantly working hands, but somewhere along the line, those hands touch about everything we eat and every bush, flower or fern we cherish.
I said I wouldn’t dwell. I had to walk away from that conversation.
I returned to my new plants, the ones still soaking wet from rain in North Carolina. I divided ribbon ferns and tried to let pass the trapped-in-South Carolina feeling, the hurt, shame, and pitty for people who just don’t know.
I focused on my new ribbon ferns. This winter, some can be yours too. And I reminded myself that when we finally get some of that cat-and-dog rain, or when I hit the showers, the stinky organic compost, the bits of leaf, and the sweat will wash off me.
If you've made it this far, please help me try a new Substack feature called Live. I’d love to use it to share moments like yesterday's super cool nursery. This morning, about 10 a.m.
I’m going to try a test of it while I’m in the garden, which is featured in the dog video above.
To join, you must be in the app or on the Web page. So download it or open Substack on your computer. This is a test run. It will be short: a five-minute walk through a garden of containers placed on an old driveway.
Bad Dogs & Great Garden