Penny Carnathan

Penny’s a Nurture And Hold (NAH): Nah, I won’t pull that out yet, it’s still got a green shoot. She likes dragonflies, lady bugs and new stuff only after weeding, pruning and fertilizing.

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Kim’s a Want It Now (WIN): Everything pretty, everything now. She will resort to full-spectrum insecticides in desperate situations, and believes it’s her duty and right to buy new plants every weekend.

Both advocate Plant Choice (SOMEthing besides crotons. Please!), lots of color and low maintenance. We don’t agree on everything, but we’re smart enough to learn from each other - and from you.

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It’s about time for ... a gin & tonic

Posted Jan 9, 2010 by Loren Omoto

Updated Jan 9, 2010 at 06:57 PM

I “posted” this in The Tribune last Sunday but, the week being what it has been, I never got a chance to put it here. So if you don’t read The Dirt in the Trib and if you, like FOD Janice, is pulling out the garden books to pass the time, this may be worth a look. I LOVE this book!

Back in August, I got a pass-along from Penny Titus when I visited her garden in Lutz. Penny’s a retired librarian, so she knows a good book, even if she did find it on a remainders table at Barnes & Noble.

When winter blew in, I finally cuddled up with “The Gin & Tonic Gardener.” What a delightful surprise! How had I never heard of this book? I would’ve loved to write it myself, but “The White Zin Gardener” just doesn’t have the same ring.

The subtitle is “Confessions of a Reformed Compulsive Gardener.” The journal-ish collection of essays chronicles Janice Wells’ efforts to transform her new yard into a relaxing garden — “A gin-and-tonic-hammock-good-book kind of garden, where nothing is forced to be neat if it doesn’t want to be, and where I never feel guilty about doing absolutely nothing productive.”

My kind of garden.

Janice had just emerged from a 20-year marriage when she bought the bungalow and its mostly vacant yard. In many ways, her musings are as much a light-hearted look at starting over as they are ripe little seeds of wisdom about vines and roses and inventing new uses for cast-offs. Her re-engineered philosophy assumes the value in procrastinating, daydreaming and making mistakes.

Penny Titus likes that approach, and the Canadian writer’s humor and gentle voice.

“She became to me a good friend,” Penny says. “I identify with her. Except, of course, I sip Scotch.”

I, too, was taken with “Gin & Tonic,” I Tonic.” I scoured the Internet to learn more about Janice, who lives in Newfoundland. Finally, I found an e-mail address, and we managed a phone connection. She was surprised to hear from me. Apparently, only Canadians got her book.

“How did you find it?” she asked. “It really hasn’t been distributed in the States.”

That explains a lot.

Janice says the essays are columns she wrote for the Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia starting back in 1998; the book published in 2007. She says she remains a reformed compulsive gardener — “Sometimes I think I’ve carried it to the extreme.”

She no longer lives in the first bungalow she wrote about in “Gin & Tonic,” nor the second home, but she still owns both and has, naturally, been back to visit.

“When you leave a garden, you should never go back,” she advises, “because it breaks your heart.”

I asked her about any advice she might have for Bay area gardeners. She thinks we’re nuts for trying to have lawns, which were bred in England (surprise!) for the English climate.

“They’re un-American,” she says. “And don’t you have water concerns there?”

Well, yes, Janice, we do. And a few others of late, too.

She also shared a secret.

“I don’t drink gin and tonic. I drink gin and soda. Sometimes with some pineapple juice. But that doesn’t sound as good in a title.”

Penny suggested I pass along “Gin & Tonic” to another gardener when I’ve finished it. If you don’t get my copy, you can find one at Amazon.com, along with the 2008 sequel, “Another Splash of the Gin & Tonic Gardener” They cost about $13 each.(about $13 each).