A Day in the Garden of Actor John Spencer
by Ketzel Levine

Actor John Spencer

I'm amazed by Spencer's devotion to plants that are barely surviving and his stubborness about holding on to plants that are so clearly dead.

"You just never know," he kept saying about all those prickly brown sticks he hoped would soon come back as roses. "You just never know".

He does point out again and again how he's been continually surprised by the way plants grow in California -- that they can be dormant for ludicrous lengths of time (like a year or two) and then suddenly revive. What surprises me is that he's got the patience to take up so much pot space with all those "no shows," an observation that sheds little light on Spencer but says bucket loads about me.

What an unfeeling, ruthless gardener I am when compared to John Spencer! I regularly yank plants he'd consider a great prize. Never mind if a plant in my garden blooms and has leaves; if it fails to thrive (read: meet my expectations), it's outta there. Not to mention if it's the wrong shape or color, or prone to pests or disease, or needs more water than the soaker hose supplies. I just don't have it in me to fuss and feed.

But Spencer! He says he can't stop feeding his plants (how I pity the hybrid tea roses left in my garden by the last owner; they should only know how good life could have been).

Clearly, this big-hearted man and I garden for completely different reasons, and have completely different expectations. I want plants to perform and pull their weight; he prefers to withhold judgment and shower them with love.

"It's still a phenomenon to me," he says, "that something grows and a flower comes and maybe a fruit grows and you eat it. Isn't that an amazing concept?" Not half as amazing as the enormity of unabashed pleasure enjoyed by this hopelessly romantic gardener.


NPR's Doyenne of Dirt, Ketzel Levine, is a contributing editor to Horticulture Magazine. Her first book, Plant This!, will be published this fall by Sasquatch Books.