Gardening Buddies

By NIKKI PATRICK
The Morning Sun

PITTSBURG — It’s really nice when neighbors share an interest in gardening.

Neighbors Kathleen Nichols, 413 W. Adams, and Maxine Conrad, 415 W. Adams, have two of the seven gardens to be featured Saturday during the Pittsburg Garden Tour. Held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., the event has been coordinated by the Zone 6 Garden Club of Pittsburg.

“We encourage each other a lot, and give suggestions,” said Nichols, a Pittsburg State University English professor. “It’s nice to have a resource right next door.”

“Kathy is my resource,” said Conrad, who retired this year from USD 250. “Most of my friends aren’t gardeners.”

“If one of us gets a new plant, the other will be just as excited about it,” Nichols said. “That won’t be the case with our families or other friends.”

The two have been neighbors since Conrad moved in 17 years ago. She said she had no previous gardening experience. “My garden started with friends giving me starts of plants,” Conrad said. “I started small, kept expanding and now I wonder why. I can’t say I prefer or specialize in anything — I just keep adding.”

She started working with the front of her house nine years ago, and has been working with the back yard for six years.

“One unique thing is that Maxine incorporates her craft projects into her garden,” Nichols said.

“It’s just old bits and pieces of gates and things,” Conrad said. Also amongst the flowers are a child’s wagon, bicycle and old chairs.

Nichols said she has been gardening since childhood, when she stole a wild violet from a neighbor’s yard, planted it by her swing, and it lived.

She moved into her current home around 1984, and for many years worked on perennials — particular spring favorites are her pink Oriental poppies, pink and white peonies and blue or purple iris.However, about five years ago, Nichols was seized by a desire to grow roses, and now has 63 of them, including hybrid tea roses, which she describes as “divas,” along with lots of shrub roses, hybrid musks, climber roses and mini-roses.

“I get online and order them from all over the country,” she said. “I’m in an online rose forum, and some people there have 300 or 800 roses. I think one person has 1,200 of them.”Nichols said she is somewhat particular about which roses she allows in her garden. “There are thousands of beautiful roses out there, but they can’t come into my garden if they don’t have some kind of disease resistance,” Nichols said.

“But even if they say the roses are disease-resistant, they aren’t always,” Conrad added.Conditions this spring haven’t been that good for their gardens.

“About half of my roses are in bloom, and the other half took a rest during the rain and gloom,” Nichols said. “I come out every day and talk to them and encourage them.”A large branch also fell on one of her rose bushes last week. “I had to cut it back, but it will survive,” she said.“The weather has been so lousy that we’re lucky to get one day a week when we can get out and work,” Conrad said. “The way this weather has been, it’s amazing to look out and see all this color.”

Both are hoping for good weather on Saturday. “There’s such a variety of gardens on the tour that I know everybody will find something to enjoy,” Conrad said.

Other gardens on the tour will include Wood’s Edge, the garden of Brad and Andra Stefanoni, 37n Westfield; the gardens of Shirley and J.D. Messenger, 2611 California; Patty Horgan, 4151 Woodland Drive; Bill and Vicki Moody, 213 S. Dittman, Frontenac; and Tom and Judy Spurgeon, 215 S. Dittman, Frontenac.

This will be a self - guided tour, with garden owners and club members at each site to answer questions and to highlight interesting elements within the gardens. In addition to the gardens themselves, there will be a Gardener’s Market with plants and garden related items for sale from a variety of vendors from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Pritchett Pavilion, Immigrant Park. Ticket may be purchased in advance for $6 at New Life Antiques, 108 W. Third, Pittsburg; Carla’s Country Gardens, 212 S. Pesavento Ave., Chicopee; In the Garden, 719 S. Broadway, Pittsburg; Seasons Garden Center, Opolis; VanBecelaere Greenhouses, 2513 E. Fourth, and from members of Zone 6 Garden Club. Tickets may be purchased for $7 the day of the tour at Pritchett Pavilion. Children 12 and under are free.Proceeds help support and fund community garden — related projects, education programs and city beautification efforts.