Making Good for the Chunky Monkey

Before becoming the Principal Undergardener, your humble correspondent had a day job in technology, specializing in an arcane subject called ‘corporate development’.  While the hours were frequently long, the job had some noticeably good perks.  One of them was an annual trip in late October to a financial conference sponsored by the American Electronics Association.

There, technology companies and institutional investors (many of them Masters Of The Universe) got together on what could be fairly described as a ‘level playing field’.  We all had breakfast and lunch together but, in the morning and afternoon, companies told their stories in a more formal setting.  There were perhaps 150 presenting companies trying to get the attention of roughly 400 institutional investors.

Brokerage firms, too, were seeking attention.  The usual suspects plied companies and institutional investors alike with lavish dinners every night.  One small firm, though, hit on a more novel approach.  Still building name recognition and lacking the ‘pull’ of the banking giants, the brokerage firm set out a Ben & Jerry’s cart on the hotel’s plaza, where they handed out ice cream cones.  Senior managers of the brokerage firm used the thirty seconds or so that it took to scoop a cone to give what has come to be called an ‘elevator pitch’; a concise summary of their qualifications.

The genius of the cart was that there was always a line.  Even Masters Of The Universe who made zillions of dollars a year could not resist the lure of a free scoop of New York Super Chunk Fudge.

I began going to the conference (initially held in Monterey, then moved to San Diego) in the mid-1980s.  Like everyone, I lined up for ice cream.  Then, in the mid-1990s, the cart was missing.  I asked the conference director what had happened. “They decided it wasn’t sufficiently dignified,” I was told.  Having grown in size and stature, they now held a dinner, just like the big boys.  “Well,” I asked, “could a company sponsor the cart?”  The conference director thought for several long moments. “I don’t see why not,” was the final reply.

The next year, I was back at the conference with a four-day lease on a Ben & Jerry’s cart and twenty tubs of super-premium ice cream.  All I needed was someone to help scoop.

Think globally, act locally.  'Plant
America' became 'Plant Massachusetts'
(Double-click for a larger view)

My boss was the Chairman and CEO of the company.  He thought my idea was a stroke of genius.  He also had no intention of scooping ice cream (he claimed a bad back).  The company’s CFO also went to the conference.  He was slightly more game for the project, but claimed to be tongue-tied. 

Which left my wife, Betty, as the assistant scooper.  And, because I was making presentations eight times a day on two of those days, Betty was frequently the main scooper.

Our respective spouses had frequently accompanied us on the trip.  Betty would take off with the others to see gardens or historic sights, have lunch, and join us just in time for dinner.  When I first broached my problem with Betty, she said something to the effect that I ought to have worked out the fine details before I leased the cart.  But she agreed.  And, for three years, she more or less willingly scooped ice cream; even the rock-hard Chunky Monkey.  Also for the record, she was superb.  Our sessions were held to standing-room-only audiences.

I spent a day cutting apart tablecloths

I tell this story because of what took place in our home over the past five days.  On Wednesday, June 7, Betty chaired her final meeting as President of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts (GCFM).  Present to install the new GCFM President was Nancy Hargroves, the President of National Garden Clubs, Inc.; herself also newly installed.

National Presidents hit the ground running.  President Hargroves’ theme for the next two years is ‘Plant America’ with a focus on horticulture and gardening. 

The problem with all this was 30 table centerpieces. Traditionally, GCFM annual meetings show off the considerable talents of floral designers, and taking home one of the centerpieces is a big deal.  Floral design, by definition, deals with cut flowers.  You can’t exactly ‘Plant America’ with cut flowers (most of which were grown in South America).

A dianthus with its flag

So Betty hit on an idea.  Instead of cut flower centerpieces, she would use plants.  There would be nine plants for each table so that each attendee could take home (and plant) an annual, perennial, or vegetable.  To meet a tight budget, Betty went to a wholesale nursery with the employee of a friend and, two hours later, hundreds of plants were in our garage.

The plants needed a flag.  Betty decided the idea of ‘Plant America’ could be made more forceful by having a ‘Plant Massachusetts’ flag.  My first job was to design and have printed such a flag, which sounds easier than it is.  An area print shop turned around the flags, printed on glossy paper, in a few hours.  Next, the flags had to be mounted on flagpoles, which ended up being bamboo skewers.  On Sunday morning, four members of the Medfield Garden Club, Betty, and I set up an assembly line that turned out 300 flags in about three hours. 

But now the pots of plants needed covers.  Fortunately, Betty had saved 20 gingham tablecloths from a long-ago event.  I spent most of Monday cutting the tablecloths into squares.  On Tuesday, while Betty purchased more plants (due to higher than expected attendance), I loaded as many plants, cloth squares, and flagpoles as would fit into a Prius and began ferrying them 45 miles to the conference center where the annual meeting would be held.  On Tuesday evening (after dinner with President Hargroves), Betty, her good friend who deserves a halo, and I began placing the squares on the plants, securing them with a rubber band, and then fluffing the squares to look more decorative.  The flags were then affixed to the finished pots.  This took until nearly midnight.

The centertpieces (red arrows), with
Betty (in pink) presenting an award

On Wednesday morning, the final covers were affixed to the final pots and everything was placed on carts.  While 250 garden club members networked before lunch, the carts were wheeled in and the plants decoratively arrayed on tables.  When the attendees filed in for lunch, there were the 30 tables, each festooned with colorfully-bibbed plants bearing ‘Plant Massachusetts’ flags.  It all looked effortless.

Five days of helping Betty get ready for a meeting doesn’t fully atone for those years of scooping ice cream.  But helping her last meeting be a success was a pleasure I won’t soon forget.  

Bruce Smith

The Massachusetts Horticultural Society lost an unsung hero this week.  He was a reluctant hero and a somewhat improbable one, but a hero all the same.  His name was Bruce Smith.

In 2008, Bruce was happily retired from a career in finance with Raytheon.  His wife, Linda Jean, was rising through the leadership of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.  By custom, the Federation has a chair on Mass Hort’s Board of Trustees and, from 2007 to 2009 that chair was occupied by the Federation’s First Vice President, who happened to be Linda Jean.

2008 was the year Mass Hort imploded.  A venerable institution was found to be millions in debt and with an endowment that had been drained to pay everyday expenses.  The Executive Director resigned, three-quarters of the Society’s employees were let go and, in a move that sent shock waves through the region, Mass Hort announced the cancellation of the 2009 New England Spring Flower Show.

In hindsight, the implosion may have been inevitable.  The Executive Director who resigned was just the most recent of a line of hires with questionable management skills.  Mass Hort had already sold off its patrimony (Horticulture magazine and Horticultural Hall in Boston) to keep itself afloat.  As Boston magazine put it rather indelicately in an article a few months after the implosion, perhaps the Massachusetts Horticultural Society had simply outlived its usefulness.

A group of trustees and long-time volunteers thought strongly otherwise.  They dug into their own pockets and began a salvage operation.  They rallied every friend they could muster.

And into this storm stepped Bruce Smith. 

I know from personal experience what it is like to be married to an officer of the Garden Club Federation.  Your spouse’s causes become your causes.  Whatever skills you possess become available to the Federation and the causes your spouse supports.  It’s all there, tucked between the lines of your wedding vows.

Bruce possessed financial skills.  Moreover, he had no allegiances and no history.  There would be no sacred cows.  He held no formal title and certainly received no salary.  He did it for the challenge and, perhaps, because Linda Jean asked him to.

I knew Bruce because I, too, was drawn into Mass Hort by my wife, Betty.  She, too, was rising through the Federation ranks but she was also a Master Gardener who had done her training and internship at Mass Hort’s Elm Bank headquarters.  My contribution was to organize and run Mass Hort’s activities at the Boston Flower & Garden Show, a new venture that could bring badly needed cash to the Society.  Bruce and I got along because when he talked about ‘GAAP’ I knew he meant Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and not a place to buy jeans.  We also got along because I knew how to make a budget and stick to it.

Bruce faced ledgers that did not balance, drawers that were filled with unpaid bills, and a paucity of incoming cash.  He was not entirely alone; the trustees had found an organization that helped distressed non-profits and that group lent additional managerial expertise.  Another volunteer with an accounting background also stepped into the breach.

Bruce made decisions.  Many of them were unpopular and a few of them were bull-headed.  He doled out cash with an eye dropper and took a personal hand in collections.  But his actions stopped the hemorrhaging and, slowly, Mass Hort began to stabilize. 

Bruce was also blunt to a fault and spoke what he felt.  He had few friends at Mass Hort and he made enemies of those to whom he said ‘no’, most of whom were unaccustomed to hearing that word when they wanted to spend money on something.  More than once he stormed out Elm Bank vowing not to return.  There came a time when he finally kept that vow.

I am one of the many people who admired Bruce.  I firmly believe that, had he not stepped in when he did, the organization would have foundered and sank.  He was not a Man for All Seasons but, in Mass Hort’s season of dire need, he was there.

Bruce survived a bout of cancer last year but suffered a massive stroke on Saturday.  He died two days later.  He was 72.  He leaves behind his wife, Linda Jean; a son and two daughters and their families. 

Company's Coming!

I am told that, in a different era, becoming a member of a garden club was not simply a matter of filling out an application and paying some dues.  There was an "applicants’ review committee" that went out and inspected the prospective member’s garden.  Notes were taken.  Discussions were held.  And, only if the garden showed exceptional dedication was a prospective member approved.  Those days have gone by the boards, of course.  Today, no one inspects your garden.  What a silly idea! 

The xeric garden is the first thing that
visitors see when they come to the
house.  That's baptisia and peonies
blooming in the background.

Then why was I out re-edging our driveway this morning and sweeping it clean? 

The reason is that two garden-club-related groups are coming to our home this week.  And Betty wants the garden to look its best.  Call it a matter of taking pride in your garden and wanting to make certain it reflects what she says when she talks about gardening to other groups.

The right-hand side of the xeric
garden (foreground) and shrub bed.
The deutzia and fothergilla are
in bloom (double-click any image
for a better look)

By way of background, last week Betty was installed as the First Vice President of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.  In two years, she will become the Federation’s president.  Anyone who thinks that being an officer of a state garden club federation is an honorific with no responsibilities needs to re-think what garden clubs do in the 21^st Century. 

Walking up the driveway, visitors
see the two shade beds on the left.

For the past two years (as Second Vice President) Betty has had responsibility for two ‘big’ issues:  insurance and 501(c)(3) eligibility.  The latter consumed several hundred hours of her time.  The state garden club federation is a registered non-profit.  And, each individual club in the state (192 at last count) can choose to come under the state’s um-

This is the inner and outer sidewalk
beds are they appeared this morning.
It is a riot of peonies, irises, amsonia,
and geraniums.

brella.  Betty’s job was to patiently guide Massachusetts garden clubs through the process and to make certain that her charges did not end up running afoul of the IRS (which sometimes seemed to take delight in making small clubs fill out voluminous paperwork for no particularly good reason).  Betty excelled at her job.  At the state garden club conference last week, I watched several club presidents and treasurers express their appreciation for her efforts.

Detail of the outer sidewalk
bed.  From front to back,
huechera, amsonia, yellow
and blue iris, and a dwarf
Japanese maple.

As First Vice President, Betty’s new responsibilities include overseeing District Directors (‘DD’, to keep things simple).  DDs are the link among clubs in neighboring towns and with the Federation.  It’s hard work but actually a fun job, and Betty's goal is to have them all hit the ground running.  Lunch at our home seemed like a great way to introduce everyone to their new responsibilities.

This afternoon, the new crop of DDs are coming to our home for lunch.  My job, as principal undergardener, has been to make certain the that garden is ship shape and Bristol fashion, with all the beds freshly edged and mulched, and the ‘million dollar edge’ laid down on our 230-foot-long driveway using a tool that is right out of another century but that makes a great first impression as people walk up to the house.

A portion of the rock
garden at the rear of the
property.  

The accompanying photos show the garden as it looks today (June 11).  It has been very wet and cool for the past week, so perennials such as peonies, irises and baptisia are sticking around far longer than usual, while the ‘yellow’ flowers of summer (heleopsis, helianthus) are still budding up.  The containers Betty planted at the beginning of May are not nearly as lush as they would usually be at this point in June, but they’re attractive all the same.

There is no formal tour planned as part of the luncheon, but most of the group has heard about the garden and it is nice to be prepared.