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by Rett Davis | |
Gardening Q&A by Rett Davis appears in
Alamance County's daily newspaper, The Times-News,
every Sunday in the Accent section. Each week's installment is
posted to this
website, beginning with January of this year. Scroll to the bottom of
this page to navigate to other Gardening Q&As. Please contact
Rett via e-mail with questions
or
comments in regard to this column.
The last gardening column of the year is when I take the liberty to escape the world of answering horticultural questions. This Sunday I have decided to address those questions that I get asked all year but don't put in the paper.
Question:
I have called your office three times to talk to you. You are never in. I wish I could have a government job. Does he ever come to work?
Answer:
This is what the secretaries hear daily. Be thankful I am not your doctor or you would be dead by now! My records show that I answered 5,100 phone calls in 2003. I don't keep records of outgoing calls. So apparently someone is getting through. But it was those 3,200 appointments, visits, walk ins, and personal contacts that kept me from being by the phone and going insane. I have 40% hearing loss in one ear. I thought it was from years of hunting, but it is from talking on the phone. I pray daily that when I die that no one throws a phone in with me. My advice is to keep trying or talk to one of our 38 Master Gardeners. They have been a blessing.
Question:
The picture that accompanies this article must have been taken when you where in high school. Isn't about time for a new one?
Answer:
Actually I do look the same as I did in high school. I am also within 5 pounds of what I weighed in high school. Since I am 30 pounds lighter than when the last photo was taken, I will have a new photo made before the holiday foods take their toll. But give me time to try various colors of 'Just for Men' before I go.
Question:
Do you really write all your columns? Are any of them recycled from years past?
Answer:
I really do write them all. I have recycled some questions in the past when I was in a pinch before a vacation. But for the last 18 years I have tried to keep them fresh and timely. Sometimes I ask my co-workers for some of their questions when the week has been cold and rainy. The bulk of my questions come from phone calls while the others come from the public that stop me at the grocery store, church, funerals, parties, while shopping, my radio program, e-mail, and those that drop by the house because they can't get me at work. I get very few written letters.
Question:
You seem to be so smart. How can you know the answers to all those questions?
Answer:
Because I never print those questions that I don't know the answers too. That is called being smart!
Question:
When are you going to retire? Are you planning on writing a book?
Answer:
I have not set a date. Although I do have my 30 years, I have not answered the question 'What's next'. I still love to come to work. Plus, I admire and respect the people I work with and for. As long as I still have the support of the county commissioners, the county manager, the state director and the public, I will continue on for few more years. As for a book, I did a market survey and found that I could sell only three books. One to my mother, my mother-in-law, and one to my wife. All three wanted heavy discounting. My children wanted to borrow their mothers after she finished reading it.
Question:
Do you work for the Times News?
Answer:
Yes, I do work for them but do not receive any renumeration. It is a public service. Even though I have been introduced to others as 'the man that writes in the paper' and as the garden reporter. My dangling participles and double negatives will keep me from being a 'real' newspaper reporter. I depend heavily on Tom Dillon, Jim Wicker, Brent Lancaster, Charity Apple, and Helen West to make me sound intelligent in print. If not for them, Lee Barnes would have canned me a long time ago. We are fortunate in Alamance to have a paper that is so interested in the community and the local people.
Question:
What are you pet peeves?
Answer:
People that call for answers and have nothing to write the answer on nor a pen that works. Husbands that make their wives call me and then relay their questions from their Lazy Boy chair. Having no idea what kind of plant they are having problems with other than 'it is green' and 'everybody has them'. Spelling malathion 4 times over the phone. Thank goodness Diazinon goes off the market the end of this month! TV reporters that don't know what a clod is. People that get ugly with our secretaries because I am never in, but won't leave a call back phone number because they are going out.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL MY FAITHFUL READERS!
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If you have any horticultural questions, please direct them to Rett Davis