About Buckhead reporter. (Sandy Springs, GA) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (May 3, 2013)
COMMENTARY For men only, a garden club grows in Buckhead Allen Ferrell grew up on a ranch in Col orado, so he knew his way around back yard vegetable and flower gardens. But af ter he settled in Georgia back in 2004, he found that when it came to plants, some things had changed. “Coming from Colorado, the climate is so different,” the 72 -year-old Ferrell said. “I found out [that in Georgia], some things you have to take a machete to.” Like crepe myrtles, those colorful trees that seem to sprout everywhere and that some local gardeners prune nearly to stumps every spring. Or consider the difference, he said, in growing impatiens. He’d always liked rais ing the colorful little flowers. When he lived in Denver, he had to nurture them, replant them every year, fuss over them. Here? They jump out of the ground. “Here, they grow three times the height,” he said. “We were amazed at the beds of impatiens we had.” Ferrell lives in a Buckhead condo minium now, so he does much of his gardening through the Buckhead Men’s Garden Club, a 53-year-old organi zation that claims 35 members and is based at a greenhouse tucked away on the property of the Atlanta History Cen ter. Ferrell, president of the club, said that back in the 1970s, the group had as many as 140 members. ITe thinks mem bership has fallen offbecause people just don’t have as much time to garden as they used to. The club has one distinctive feature. “As far as we know, we are the only men’s garden club in Georgia,” he said. “Garden clubs tend to be 95 percent women.” So why did a men-only garden club sprout in Buckhead? “I honestly don’t know what caused a group of men to band together, other than an interest in gardening,” Ferrell said one recent sun ny Saturday morning as he sat among the Knock Out roses, asparagus and oth er plants club members were growing at the greenhouse. ITe thought a minute more. “And they probably had very little space to propagate plants.” Not that members don’t garden at home. Member Wheeler Bryan certain ly does. ITe’s been tending a patch in the backyard of his Buckhead home for 25- plus years, he said. His wife, Anne, com plains that his vegetable gar den some times sprawls into her flow er garden. Bryan, who says he learned gar dening when he was grow- ing up in Tif- ton in south Georgia, now grows toma toes, squash, eggplants, lots of varieties of peppers and lettuce. Fie har vests so much that his children kid him that he’s a truck farm er. “My two children, who are now grown, learned to count change by running a vegeta ble stand in the front yard,” he said. “I would make them [spend half the proceeds to] take us out to dinner. We al ways went to Wendy’s or Burg er King.” The Bryans dropped by the men’s club greenhouse on this Saturday morning to see what sort of plants the club was of- fering during one of its periodic fund raising sales. Members who garden at the greenhouse must turn over half their crop to the club. Some vegetables are shared to be eaten. Other plants — be gonias, azaleas — are sold to raise mon ey to pay club bills. Anne Bryan bought a begonia. As he waited for customers to arrive, Cal Crutchfield, who’s 64 and works at Clayton State University, nibbled on dried collard leaves. He’d grown the greens in a small plot next to the greenhouse and cooked them to roughly the consistency of po tato chips. He grows various greens, cab bages, lettuce and others. “I grow sor rel,” he said. “I like to make sorrel and arugula salads because you get the salt and pepper taste from the plants.” He used to have trouble growing vegetables at home, he said, because his house faces south and his backyard gets too little sun. Now he’s trying some raised beds in his sunny front yard, he said. Still, his cabbages and sorrel are growing alongside the little greenhouse that operates within sight of Buckhead’s high rises. And he enjoys the club’s meetings, where programs range from a talk on lichens to descriptions of gar dens that have been established any where from South Carolina to England. “It’s a good way to get out of the house,” Crutchfield said. “We just have a lot of fun and a lot of camaraderie. A lot of us are older and need to do some thing different.” And, of course, find a place in the city to tend to their cabbage crop. JOE EARLE Allen Ferell, left, president of the Buckhead Men’s Garden Club, discusses plants with member Cal Crutchfield. AROUND TOWN JOE EARLE $100 OBC offer applies to 6-night or longer cruise or cruisetour departing 7/1/13-4/30/15; bookings must be in veranda, Concierge Class, AquaClass or suite categories. Cruise must be booked 4/1-6/30/13. Excludes Celebrity Xpedition. One OBC offer per stateroom. Offer open only to residents of GA. Address will be verifited at pier. Single occupancy bookings eligible. 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