A garden never sleeps, least of all the Wonder Garden, Manzanita’s one and only truly living room. Even as the last perennials dissolve and the fruited shrubs shrivel, the broadleaf evergreens – those non-needled trees and shrubs that are the bones of the WG – take on the hard work hard of looking good.

Not so the Wonder Gardeners! We are ready for a bit of down time. Some of our labors began back in March (albeit in-between downpours),  growing stem by stem and bud by bud into our total knockout of a plant sale. What a success!

Not counting your own contribution (forgot to give? heck, we’re not proud, for the right amount we’ll just dig you up a plant!), we netted almost a third of our optimum operating budget. A huge thanks to all who bought plants, trellises and our iconic painted tools. We hope they give you years of joy.

Yet our biggest thanks has to go to The Wonder Gardeners, whose efforts make us the pleasure garden we are. I suspect each and every one of them will tell you the pleasure is all theirs; multiply that by a whopping 18 and it all adds up to one satisfied crew.

One of our staunchest gardeners finds great solace puttering among the beds in the wee hours before Manzanita wakes. Another likes the late morning, when newly-caffeinated visitors swing by for a look and a chat.  And then there’s the gardener with the town’s most handsome Golden, the duo who haunt the day’s waning hours, as one picks a day’s worth of crumbs out of the gravel while the other watches the dying light electrify color.

In alphabetical order, then, please thank the 2022 Wonder Gardeners!

Isabel Beaton, Janet Carter, Mary Gehling, Guy Gehling, Matty Goodrich, Alicia Grace, Steve Kim, Heda Koh, Mark Kuestner, Jan Layne, Ketzel Levine, Denise Maher, Karen Matthews, Rob McFarland, Susan Reinehardt, Jerry Stanger, Colleen Schwindt and Jenny Stewart. If any of them are your friends or neighbors, give ‘em the thumbs up!

Fall planting’s right around the corner, mulching won’t be far behind. If you’d like to help us do the heavy lifting, you know where we’ll be.