Celebration of Gardening on the Hill

As a child of schoolteachers, my family’s yearly calendar started in September with the beginning of a new school year.  Forget New Year’s Eve. Life started with the school bus coming down the street to pick us up.  Fall is still that for me, a time for new beginnings.

So, this fall I am ready to jump into a new schedule and hand over the urban garden column to a new writer.  My first column appeared in December of 2006, 18 years ago. This is my last one. It has been a delight to produce over two hundred articles about Capitol Hill’s public and private gardens and so many other related topics.

The absolute best part has been getting to meet so many gardeners and learning from their experiences.  Hill gardeners are such an inspiration.  A random quote I have always loved is “every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.”   There hasn’t been a single soul that I haven’t enjoyed spending time with, and I am a better person because of it.

To be a good gardener takes patience, nurturing, and a willingness to suspend disbelief.

It takes physical hard work to dig through the hard red clay of Capitol Hill.  It means enduring mosquito bites, blisters, and sunburns.  It means hauling cans of water to parks that have no water supply.  It means giving up on growing those California poppies you so love because your garden is all shade.

But, when the cold days of winter finally are over, and the crocus and Cherry blossoms are starting to show, there is nothing like it . Your heart and soul are about to soar again with all the fun, companionship, and beauty you create for yourself and neighbors.  For those vegetable gardeners, it also means soon your tables will be full of the fresh produce you’ve grown.  The richness of a garden touches all our senses.

What I Learned
In getting ready for the transition, I took time to reread and review my work, curious about whether I repeated myself, found new topics along the way, or got stuck on certain plants or trees.  Here are my five take aways:

1. Trees are at the heart of Capitol Hill. Most of the comments I received from readers were about trees, and more specifically about tree boxes and questions about DC laws regarding removal of trees.  Councilman Tommy Wells and his successor Charles Allen have been leaders in passing key laws to protect the tree canopy in DC. They’ve worked hard to make sure the city’s budget provides adequate funding to let the DDOT’s Urban Forestry Division (UFD) do its job.  With over 170,000 trees in the city, and a need to plant even more, trees will continue to be an important part of our future.  Of course, cherry trees and crape myrtles appeared in my columns as seasonal favorites.
2. A key theme running through my columns has been teaching children the joys of gardening and the impact of plants on health and climate. The Friends of the National Arboretum’s Washington Youth Garden, now 50 years old, has been the leader in children’s gardening education.  The garden continues to thrive and provide valuable curriculum to public and charter elementary schools in DC.  Several individual Hill schools were featured in my articles for their forward-thinking efforts in gardening and food-based issues.  The urban gardening and farming conference held each year by the city is testament to the vital, ongoing work being done on this front.
3. Native pollinators and plants are changing the garden landscape on Capitol Hill. When I started the column many Hill residents with small gardens leaned towards the boxwoods, English ivy, and more formal look.  With greater education about the environmental benefits of pollinator plants, gardeners are abandoning their boxwoods and planting milkweed, butterfly bushes, and many blooming plants like echinacea, iris, or winterberry.
4. Capitol Hill may not have expansive gardens like you find in the suburbs. But Hill residents are quite artistic and make wise use of the space they have to create outstanding gardens. Some of my favorite articles featured beautiful private gardens.  In most cases, I just knocked on the front door and introduced myself.  I was always gladly received, usually invited in for tea, and discovered the gardener was as interesting as the garden they created.  Sadly, with Carl Nelson’s passing, his wonderland garden full of toys and an Atlas statue he dressed for every occasion, is now gone, but it remains a favorite memory.
5. Using nature as an inspiration for our art and cooking is also a trend in the past few years. Workshops offered by The Hill Center, Union Market, and garden centers are often sold-out. Rewild at Eastern Market is cutting edge in bringing fresh garden ideas to the Hill.  Edible plants, forest forging, and introduction to more plant-based food is something that will interest many in the years ahead.

Capitol Hill has so many public institutions to guide gardeners in their journeys.  These include the US National Arboretum, Washington Youth Garden, the Smithsonian gardens including the People’s Garden, the US Botanic Garden, and the Capitol grounds. I’ve always found staff and volunteers in these places to be incredible in their knowledge and generous in their willingness to share.

While I cannot individually thank each and every one of my readers for all the great suggestions about stories to pursue over the years, my fondest hope is that I helped you learned some new things and made it possible to enjoy your gardens even more.

I can’t close without a special shoutout to Andrew Lightman and Melissa Ashabranner of the Hill Rag for their wonderful guidance and genuine friendship. Thanks to everyone for all I have had the chance to learn and share over the past two decades. For my part, I am looking forward to taking some of those nature and art classes; volunteering to help at some of the public gardens; and maybe even joining the garden club.

Rindy O’Brien will continue to nose around the hill, and may even have an article from time to time here at the Hill Rag. Contact Rindy at rindyobrien@gmail.com