Anne Jaeger
If your heart sinks at the thought of April 15th, rejoice, there’s something to look forward to. Get through today and we’ve got scads of flowers in our future. April 15th is not only tax day; it is also the “last frost day” for us. Which means the chance of a killer frost wiping out our plants is practically zero in Portland. (Doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, it just means -historically speaking- it hasn’t yet.) We can power plant from now on. So, after today, frost is extremely unlikely but the soil is still too cool to plant zinnias or tomatoes. They need much warmer temp’s to get growing. You can bring your tender fuchsias out of the garage or basement. Put them in the shade, prune all the spindly growth off and start fertilizing and watering them again. You can plant just about any bedding plants; petunias, geraniums all the stuff that is exploding out of garden centers now.
The question is will we? Perhaps, the same sad excuses will keep us from putting our plan into action? Or maybe we are more timid this year given world events? Sometimes you just don’t want to expend the money or the effort. Watching the war coverage on television, I’ve been curious how it’ll affect peoples garden spending habits this year. Spending is down in all other sectors. After all, gardening was a necessity during World War II. If you wanted to eat fresh veggies you had to have a “victory garden.” So are we that scared yet? The answer is “No” according to recent research. People either have faith in the future or realize they’ll be home if you buy into this years Garden Trends Research. The study asked more than a thousand people if the war with Iraq will change their planting habits. 55% say they’ll spend the same amount of money on gardening despite the war, 12% say they’ll spend more. Unfortunately nobody knows how much more, because dollar amounts weren’t discussed. Nona Wolfram Koivula, executive director of the National Garden Bureau explains it this way; “gardening provides important relief from the pressures of daily events especially during periods of significant economic and political uncertainty.” All right, but what I found so fascinating about this garden trend is what I call the “show me the money” factor. Get this; nearly 60% of the people who make more than a $100,000 a year say they’ll buy more flowers than anything else this year, not vegetables. So we’re not concerned about eating. And the more money people made, the more flowers they’ll buy for pots and containers instead of the garden. So, the people who can afford the beauty won’t let anything stop them, come war, stock market or both.
There also appears to be a couple of degrees separating our garden spending habits. According to this poll, gardeners who don’t have a high school education will spend more money on gardening, while people with a diploma and college degree won’t spend any more than they did last year. (Perhaps that’s because the alumni are already spending?) What does all this mean to us? If you’re a gardener, feel free to use it as “ammo” when your partner starts saying you’re spend too much on plants. And since tax day and last frost day coincide for 2003, you’ve got the “all clear” to take up arms and get busy with that shovel.
