Bakersfield

Published Saturday, June 09, 2007 by Chris | E-mail this post

It was a busy week at Southern Bulb as we continue to harvest on the farm. I wrapped up my activities on Thursday early and headed to Ft. Worth to catch a flight the next day for my old home in Bakersfield, California for a wedding. It will be a quick trip because there is so much to do right now.

Bakersfield is where I first began to study horticulture, under the direction of some wonderful mentors. The first person to teach me to dead head roses was my pastor when I took care of his yard growing up. Soon, the nice ladies down the street had me watching over there gardens and tending to their roses. I bought books on how to plant bare root roses and trim fruit trees (California is famous for its fruits and nuts—Almond prices have been sky high for the past few years). I learned about rose breeding from Dr. Sproul whom I looked up to for his knowledge on roses and admired for his wonderful family. Mrs. Schmidt took me to the American Rose Society meetings and helped me prepare my first introductions of roses into the judging contests. I don’t think I won a single ribbon, but I learned a lot!

It was my knowledge of bare root roses that led to my first plant rescue. My school had been located north of town to a place called Shafter, which is near another town called Wasco that is famous for roses. A person had dropped off a dozen bare root roses at the entrance to the school, visible from the office. That year I was the treasurer for the Student Body Council and I knew the office staff very well because everyday I would use the office to collect and count the money from the vending machines (it’s amazing how much money you can make off of cokes and candy bars—probably easier than selling bulbs). I was in the office when the roses were dropped off and the office was just going to let them die, so I asked if I might plant them. The idea sounded good to them and the schools first garden was created at the entrance. Two years later I received a “beautification” award and shortly after that the school moved its campus again and the garden was lost.

I studied at my local junior college (Bakersfield College) for a year in their horticulture program under Mrs. Foy. It was there I met some wonderful friends and plant people like Rodney, whom I have not seen for years but I know is doing something great in the world of horticulture. I would walk to my classes at Bakersfield College from my home. During a plant ID course, the instructor didn’t have an example of a Pyracantha sp., so in the middle of class I ran home and grabbed a cutting from our yard and took it back. The local “Dairymaids” gave me a scholarship to help pay for that year of school.

My yard is where I had the first experience with a red tulip that I mention in all of my talks. I went to a local garden center, White Forest, and purchased in the fall what I considered to be a rock in a box that had a beautiful picture on it. I planted my rock and forgot about it. Four months later we had one of the wonderful spring rains that cleared the sky and made the light crystal clear. We had both doors open, one door opened into the backyard that backed up to a bluff with the Sierra Nevadas now clearly visible due to the clean sky, and the front door open to the flowerbed where I planted my rock. I was laying on my stomach in the middle living room between the doors being lazy on that Saturday afternoon, and when I looked out front, there was my rock, turned into a striking red tulip.

Last night I walked through the front doors and stepped into this middle room, perhaps my last “coming home” I will ever have. That is the reason for my details about ol’ Bakersfield. The house is not the same, because it has been prepared for sell. Most of the furniture is gone. The ceiling fans have been replaced with a chandelier and other light structures (I guess ceiling fans aren’t popular any more except for private rooms?) The fire places have been painted over. Some of the cabinets are gone, and the others repainted. All of the acoustic (popcorn) ceilings are gone and the rafters are repainted. The place echoes with its emptiness.

I went outside to the back last night, and thought the dog might soften this blow, but the dog was across town at a friend’s. The backyard did bring back familiarity. There was my (or mom’s) peach tree that I had pruned from its youth into the mature, peach loaded tree that it now is. Dad and I scrambled over to the apricot tree to indulge in the ripening fruit. My brother and I planted that tree after we spent two weeks straight of our summer pulling out a pepper tree. On the other side yard, the plums were all ripe, and dad and I leaned out and over with fruit and hand, trying to eat them without spilling the juice on our white shirts. In the background was the potting bench dad and I built out of plans in a magazine. It’s still standing strong. Along the brick wall the black berries were ripening and some were already perfect. I walked barefoot through the rest of the back gardens. You can do that here and not worry about ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, etc. Many a night I have slept outside in the hammock.

Many of the roses had bloomed out, and the jasmine no longer carried its delightful fragrance, but there were some other showings. Just like in Texas, the gladioli were all blooming. Many of our agapanthus were shooting up new stalks, and the oleanders were in full bloom. In the entry way, some overzealous gardener had trimmed back our bougainvillea, but some of its colorful bracts could still be seen spilling over the atrium wall. The split leaf philodendron had grown to the point where I can finally accomplish my 15 year old goal of tying coconuts to the stems with orchids growing out of them. I wanted to do this to remind my parents of the time they lived in the Philippines, where their gardeners would employ that technique to cover up the bare trunks. All of the palm trees were trimmed up, and for the first time I could see how the sago palm had finally grown to a decent size.

There are so many plants we will leave behind as well as memories; so many friends too. But life is about looking forward and not back. I will miss the dinners on the deck over looking valley filled with acres of oil wells. Through the middle of the wells you can see the Kern River and follow it into the foothills of the Sierras, and on clear days we can see Mt. Whitney. Those are the mountains I worked in as a teenager. I always say they are where I grew up, where I saw my first bear, coyote, mountain lion, and caught my first trout by crawling on belly and casting a fly into a creek not more than three feet across. Even as I write this posting, my computer is plugged into the electrical socket that I used for my first makeshift motor that I had wired a plug into. I blew out the electricity to the house that day.

OK that’s enough and I thank you all for letting me share. We all have our childhood experiences, but it was only the second house I had ever known. The first was in Kingwood, near Houston, where I probably had as many fun experiences running the then undeveloped woods. In the end though, they’re just structures, mere shadows of things that we really miss, like the people and social gatherings. Here’s to the future, and congratulations Mel on your wedding!