Pat Roome has been a gardener for almost all of her 87 years, has lived and gardened at the same Bellevue home for 56 years, and has been a Master Gardener for 45 years. That’s a lot of experience, and she decided it was time to share her accumulated knowledge in a self-published book, “Legacy of a Passionate Gardener.” We are all the beneficiaries.
This is an informal book, with many charts and how-to sheets that I could imagine as handouts for a Master Gardener clinic. Examples include “How to Grow Tomatoes Easily” (in the Seattle area) and a homemade “Soil Composition Test.” The chapters cover a comprehensive list of topics relevant to the home gardener with many examples, all helpful and many amusing.
“Don’t even think of digging out a full-sized Juniper by pulling it out tied to the bumper of a pickup. I have seen this done with disastrous results.” This illustrate one of Roome’s common themes: don’t try to do everything yourself – money to bring in a pro is well spent. I found her chapter on tips for the older gardener to be especially good, with advice relevant to the physical well-being of gardeners of any age.
She freely admits her mistakes and encourages continual learning to make a garden that gives one pleasure without a lot of stress. She takes this advice to heart in concluding “my garden continues to give me a lot of happiness and satisfaction.”
Excerpted from the Fall 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin