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hen it comes to his wife Ivy’s gardening skills, Ricky Eilerman has real opinions and he isn’t content just letting her know how he feels. Eilerman, an Army veteran and real estate agent, turned to the popular social media app TikTok to let the whole world know. “How many dead plants do you have in your house? Let’s count,” he joked, while pointing to 10 plants around the couple’s Guyton home that have seen better days. In the 50-second video, he also shows his wife who seems to be pruning a basil plant that is more stems than basil. “My wife insists on buying plants, but it’s a waste of money. That’s the one thing she doesn’t do well,” he says, saying he often sneaks her dead plants out of the house. “Our son, who is 19, bought her a plant, a southern cactus. He told her it would be a plant that wouldn’t die. It died.” Where Have All The Flowers Gone? For her part, Ivy Eilerman said it’s not that she doesn’t like a pretty garden or plants, but her demanding work schedule as a mortgage company executive in Pooler doesn’t allow the time she knows a healthy garden requires. “I just can’t keep plants alive. My grandfather owned a successful family-operated, 50-acre flower nursery for many years, but I guess the gardening gene skipped me. I love plants and get excited, and then the excitement dies with the plants,” Eilerman said.
were gardening in 2020 because it gave them something to do while stuck at home during the pandemic, provided a source of exercise and helped to cope with stress. But, overwhelmingly, most were gardening to add beauty in their lives. “More than half of those surveyed told us they just wanted a beautiful outdoor space.” Heather Harrison of Pooler Plant Pickup Station and Olde Savannah Gardens said the two garden centers she owns with her husband, Ross, have seen an influx of
unrealistic expectations once a garden is planted, which, she said, is compounded by the area’s less-than-ideal soil conditions. “One of the problems we have in Pooler is horrible soil with low nutrient value,” which Harrison likens to gumbo when it rains. “We have customers who come in after reading a magazine and want a specific kind of plant or garden, but our soil here has very little nutrients, Gardening is Having a Moment and you have to learn how to plant here.” According to an Axiom 2021 Harrison, who grows 150,000 gardening insights survey, the plants for both stores on 25 spring and summer of 2020 acres in Pooler, said she and her saw homeowners gardening in With many of us spending more time staff enjoy advising customers record numbers. The research, before purchasing plants so at home and more time outside, conducted by Axiom—a that they won’t waste their time Minnesota-based marketing and money. She said she also is gardening opened the door for firm—found that 86 percent of selective in the plants she carries homeowners plan to continue even if they are zoned for the positive activities and good feelings. gardening in 2021. Nearly 40 area, and steers customers away percent of those surveyed say they from plants that she knows have will plant about the same as last difficulty growing. Those hardyear. Approximately 47 percent said they beginning and busy gardeners who want to-maintain plants on her list include will be planting more and expanding their an instant garden. dogwoods, cypress (especially the Leyland garden spaces next season. “Almost everyone who comes into and Italian variations), Indian Hawthorn “With many of us spending more time our stores say the same thing. ‘I want a and Oleander. Other plants zoned for the at home and more time outside, gardening beautiful garden, but I want it to be low area but that would be especially difficult opened the door for positive activities maintenance.’ A garden is not set it and for busy homeowners to maintain include and good feelings in a time where things forget it,” Harrison said. She said she sees Encore Azaleas, hybrid tea roses, Dwarf were looking pretty bleak,” said Kathleen her role to help customers set realistic Bottlebrush, and Redbud and Cherry trees. Hennessy, head of the horticulture goals. Most gardens fail, Harrison said, Harrison also said while the normal marketing group for Axiom, which caters because of the selection of the wrong planting convention is to prepare the to the gardening industry. Hennessy said plants for the climate, planting in the garden bed allowing a depth of at least many homeowners surveyed said they wrong location, improper spacing or 12-inches for annuals and 18-inches
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www.PoolerMagazine.com | May/June 2021 11