Who are the Pitiful Gardeners?
The Pitiful Gardeners Are Suburban Gals
Our whole enterprise got started when we lived just a few blocks apart, and worked on some neighborhood projects together – traffic control, creating a new park, beautifying the area, cleaning up a salmon stream, and other good works. Our daughters went to the same elementary school.
Connie Eden is a renowned local gardener. Tracy Cheney is, to say the least, not.
Connie gardens because she loves it; she’ll rip out perfectly good stuff because she wants to redesign her yard or try a new color scheme. Tracy was just so grateful – and surprised – that things actually grew in her yard. She gardened to keep up appearances and because she couldn’t afford to hire someone else to do it (though we both admit to getting our husbands out to do a lot of yard work).
Connie had a TV gig on gardening for three years on a Seattle station, gives gardening workshops, makes concrete garden art, and designs yards. Tracy taught school for a number of years, is a writer, an aspiring actor, and these days has little time left for gardening.
A gardening fanatic and a clueless gardener bridge the gap between them
How did we first breach that seemingly wide gulf between real gardeners and the wannabes? When Tracy was in grief over the latest plant death in her yard, Connie came over to diagnose. It was Tracy’s first inkling that she simply couldn’t plant flowers wherever she pleased – in this case, tucking sun-loving flowers into the deep, dark shade under fir trees because she wanted to brighten up the space.
Connie finally asked Tracy about the other crazy stuff she was doing in her yard. Tracy hadn’t a clue. She felt, well, downright pitiful. Connie had assumed everyone knew how to make a garden grow, and Tracy assumed she knew how to do it, too. Several years and hundreds of (Tracy’s) wasted dollars later, the gals collaborated on “The Pitiful Gardener’s Handbook,” which is basically the answers to all of Tracy’s questions.
So, does the Handbook work?
In response, let’s just say that when the book first came out in 1999, we gave authors’ talks. Slides of Tracy’s yard were used to illustrate the lighthearted downside of gardening. But she has steadily improved since (nothing like a huge dose of public humiliation)!!
The biggest challenge for Tracy is she’s moved three times to different parts of the country since then. She’s had to adapt the basic concepts taught in “The Pitiful Gardener” to each region. Not the easiest thing for a pitiful gardener to do, especially when she had to leave her gardening guru behind. But this website allows us to communicate, and include anyone else who wants to quit experiencing similar gardening disasters. Knowledge, and a lot of laughter, are the keys
What Tracy is up to…
Since leaving the lush Pacific Northwest where she finally grasped the concept of gardening, Tracy moved to five dry wilderness acres in the mountains near Yosemite in California. Then it was off to the sticky clay soil of the humid Texas Gulf Coast. Yet another cross-continental move to the asphalt jungle of Los Angeles has Tracy’s garden space facing due west into the withering sun!
Tracy has personally put the principles found in “The Pitiful Gardener” to the test. Those extreme locales could have been a disaster for a pitiful gardener (who’d rather been doing other things), but applying the basics saved her plenty of aggravation. Since she’s in LA, Tracy got herself an agent. She’s been in a couple of movies and tv shows! She hopes to sell a screenplay one of these days. Wouldn’t it be great to see the Pitiful Gardeners on the big screen?! Tracy has been submitting a reality show version of The Pitiful Gardeners to producers in LA. Our concept is to allow you pitiful gardeners out there to get some help in your yard and have lots of fun doing it!
What Connie is up to…
While not spending all her time with garden-related enterprises, Connie does engage in a bunch of them. Besides doing a limited number of yard designs, she has a thriving business making mosaic garden objects and concrete garden art. Connie gives workshops on making concrete containers.
Connie serves on the tree committee in her community, and founded the neighborhood garden club. Considering that she’s been reworking the same ground for the past twenty years, it’s amazing how much time she spends in her yard. You’d think it would be done by now! Connie and her friend Rose have developed a successful concrete garden art business. They really cleaned up at the Seattle Flower and Garden show last this year, and plan to do the same this spring! You can see their unique pieces at www.edenandrose.com.
About our title “Pitiful Gardener…”
Once a radio interviewer asked if we were being a tadbit insulting. Hey, if you’re an accomplished gardener, then you won’t identify with the “pitiful” label at all. But pitiful gardeners know very will who they are, and embrace it! Our goal is to help you be pitiful no more, if that’s what you want. Or stay how you are — we just love it that you’re trying to garden!
Contact
Tracy and Connie
pitifulgardener@gmail.com
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