COMMENTARY
For men only, a garden club grows in Buckhead Allen Ferrell grew up on a ranch in Colorado, so he knew his way around backyard vegetable and flower gardens. But after he settled in Georgia back in 2004, he found that when it came to plants, some things had changed. “Coming from Colorado, the climate is so different,” the 72-year-old Ferrell said. “I found out [that in Georgia], some things you have to take a machete to.” Like crepe myrtles, those colorful trees that seem to sprout everywhere and that some local gardeners prune nearly to stumps every spring. Or consider the difference, he said, in growing impatiens. He’d always liked rais-
plains that his vegetable garden sometimes sprawls into her flower garden. Bryan, who says he learned gardening when he was growAround ing up in TifTown ton in south Georgia, now JOE EARLE grows tomatoes, squash, eggplants, lots of varieties of peppers and lettuce. He harvests so much that his children kid him that he’s a truck farmer. “My two children, who are now grown, learned to count change by running a vegetable stand in the front yard,” he said. “I would make them [spend half the proceeds to] take us out to dinner. We always went to Wendy’s or BurgJoe Earle er King.” Allen Ferell, left, president of the The Bryans dropped by the Buckhead Men’s Garden Club, discusses men’s club greenhouse on this plants with member Cal Crutchfield. Saturday morning to see what sort of plants the club was ofing the colorful little flowers. When he fering during one of its periodic fundlived in Denver, he had to nurture them, raising sales. Members who garden at replant them every year, fuss over them. the greenhouse must turn over half their Here? They jump out of the ground. crop to the club. Some vegetables are “Here, they grow three times the height,” shared to be eaten. Other plants – behe said. “We were amazed at the beds of gonias, azaleas – are sold to raise monimpatiens we had.” ey to pay club bills. Anne Bryan bought Ferrell lives in a Buckhead condoa begonia. minium now, so he does much of his As he waited for customers to arrive, gardening through the Buckhead Men’s Cal Crutchfield, who’s 64 and works at Garden Club, a 53-year-old organiClayton State University, nibbled on zation that claims 35 members and is dried collard leaves. based at a greenhouse tucked away on He’d grown the greens in a small the property of the Atlanta History Cenplot next to the greenhouse and cooked ter. Ferrell, president of the club, said them to roughly the consistency of pothat back in the 1970s, the group had as tato chips. He grows various greens, cabmany as 140 members. He thinks membages, lettuce and others. “I grow sorbership has fallen off because people just rel,” he said. “I like to make sorrel and don’t have as much time to garden as arugula salads because you get the salt they used to. and pepper taste from the plants.” The club has one distinctive feature. He used to have trouble growing “As far as we know, we are the only men’s vegetables at home, he said, because garden club in Georgia,” he said. “Garden his house faces south and his backyard clubs tend to be 95 percent women.” gets too little sun. Now he’s trying some So why did a men-only garden club raised beds in his sunny front yard, he sprout in Buckhead? “I honestly don’t said. Still, his cabbages and sorrel are know what caused a group of men to growing alongside the little greenhouse band together, other than an interest in that operates within sight of Buckhead’s gardening,” Ferrell said one recent sunhigh rises. And he enjoys the club’s ny Saturday morning as he sat among meetings, where programs range from the Knock Out roses, asparagus and otha talk on lichens to descriptions of garer plants club members were growing at dens that have been established anythe greenhouse. He thought a minute where from South Carolina to England. more. “And they probably had very little “It’s a good way to get out of the space to propagate plants.” house,” Crutchfield said. “We just have Not that members don’t garden at a lot of fun and a lot of camaraderie. A home. Member Wheeler Bryan certainlot of us are older and need to do somely does. He’s been tending a patch in the thing different.” backyard of his Buckhead home for 25And, of course, find a place in the plus years, he said. His wife, Anne, comcity to tend to their cabbage crop.
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