Sunday Gardeners

Agastache, non-native, loved by hummingbirds

Gardeners are passionate about gardening and love to talk about it from growing succulents, raising tomatoes from seed or growing strawberries. Gardeners are also passionate about learning new approaches and techniques to transform their outdoor space into a place of magic and pleasure. They want to save water and learn about drip irrigation and discover there are two sizes of ½” drip hose. How can that be? They come home with a load of plants, carefully plant them and – because they’re drought tolerant – water them once a week and they die! What happened?

They want to care for the pollinators and discover that bees like blue and hummingbirds like red and the butterflies only lay their eggs on a specific milkweed. Who knew? They discover new pests and curiosities, find out that soil needs help and some plants do better if planted with their favorite companions.

You can Google gardening questions and get dozens of contradictory answers from gardeners with different requirements than what we have in Morgan Hill. Far better to learn from gardeners where we live and share our knowledge, experiences, frustrations, and triumphs.

The first meeting of the Sunday Gardeners interest group was held in May at the home of Chris Hopwood who gardens on half an acre where deer, turkeys, raccoons, quail, and occasionally wild pigs show up. Elizabeth Mandel gardens under similar conditions. Some have labored for years on their gardens; others have had professional help to get the basic work done – like Suman and Gautam Ganapathy who replaced a water thirsty lawn when they bought their house. Everyone has different needs and wants.

We made a list of our interests and decided to focus on a specific topic each month. At the June meeting we learned about the benefits of backyard composting from a colleague of Jenny Redfern, a fellow SCC Master Gardener.

Bee House

Our group meets in the afternoon on the first Sunday of the month. Future topics will include Plants Native to California, What to Plant & When to Plant It; Gardening in Small Spaces; Succulents for sun and Shade and much more. Some months we’ll hear from experts or plan trips to a local demonstration garden, nursery, or arboretum – whatever feeds our passion and connects us with nature.

If you would like to join us, please contact Chris Hopwood: gardening@aauwmh.org.

Chris Hopwood, Sunday Gardeners Coordinator