The plant speakeasy
Monday February 12th 2024, 9:36 pm
Filed under: Friends,Garden,Knit

You’re their best but also worst nightmare, he told me over dinner.

Me: –?

Basically, he said, because I was a nice person to deal with–but could I imagine having to deal with every.single.plant.sent. individually?

Here’s what happened. You know they would have looked at me funny if I’d said she’s an in-person friend, but she is, and she lives in Oregon now. And she and I wanted to get one of those super-rare super-good apricot seedlings to her.

So I looked up what the rules are, because the last thing I would want is its being confiscated at the state line and destroyed after I’d nurtured and grown it this past year, not to mention the disappointment to her.

Oregon has a long, long list of banned plants you cannot bring in. That’s okay, California does, too–like the gorgeous understory-level mountain laurel that I grew up with that is a silent carrier for the Sudden Oak Death disease that began in the last 30 years or so, and they’ve discovered that the redwoods

I seriously had to stop typing a moment

but it’s true, Sudden Oak Death kills the ever-unkillable towering, majestic redwoods, some of which are older than Jesus’s time. We could lose every one. California has been throwing money at research to solve that and experimenting with tossing antibiotics around tree drip lines.

I’m not about to mess with Oregon’s forests nor crops. There are so many variables added when it’s not just a kernel anymore–I wanted to do this right.

Our county agriculture office seemed a bit bemused that I was so enthusiastic about my particular apricots–and maybe at my willingness to follow the rules? How many people do? But for respect for the redwoods if nothing else, was my point of view. Do unto others. Etc. (Maybe I was atoning for those kernels I did mail the last few years?)

They were certainly willing to help. No, apricots did not show up on the banned list. Soil was, though, and inspection for a long list of diseases was required.

They told me the fee for the phytosanitary inspection. No problem.

They walked me through my part of the forms: I was being an exporter because I was sending it out of the state. Yes write one box and one plant in that one box and how I was going to ship it. (Unspoken: because that’s so not what they usually deal with.)

Then just before I went there I had to carefully take the baby tree out of its pot, get rid of every bit of dirt bigger than the equivalent of a hole left by a size US 8 knitting needle without shredding the roots, wrap them in damp paper and then into a 2 gallon ziplock zipped most of the way for the transportation time, and I was off to San Jose. Across the street from the hazardous waste plant.

One of these things is not like the other…

They had told me they would prepare their form and mail it to me afterwards, shouldn’t take too many days.

Visitors were clearly rare. Signage was sparse. I climbed the steep stairs and went oh okay, there’s where I’m supposed to go.

You call via a wall phone with a number posted by the desk opposite, once you find it, and wait for someone to come out of the locked area.

I did and pulled out my knitting.

A few minutes in, someone came out to use the restroom across the hall. On coming back, she stopped a moment and asked, Was I making a cowl?

The secret word!

She told me with a big smile that she was a knitter, too, and you could just hear the capital in that K.

I told her, I miss Stitches, wondering if she got the reference; she instantly responded, Oh, I do, too! We were in strong agreement that someone had to re-start that business. There were so many of us! Clearly enough to make it worth someone’s while, and with that she headed back through the door I was waiting by, having enjoyed the conversation thoroughly.

I don’t know if that made the difference. I don’t know if word was conveyed by the five other people who went through that door in that time that I would not be antsy at the wait, to say the least.

All I know is that a new person came out that door, inspected my plant with its roots dangling nakedly in her hands and healthy as could be, she made me wait awhile again–and then chucked that thought, opened the door again, and invited me back there while she finished the form and double-checked with me on the name and address it was to go to.

I paid. I was done. It was done. I was free to mail it, just make sure that paperwork is inside because it could be opened at any point along the way and checked for that phytosanitary report and certificate.

I had been saving a long narrow box and the cushioning for it since Christmas.

Between yesterday’s full dormancy and this afternoon’s 64F, it had started to show the first tiny signs of spring and it could not safely spend three days in the dark.

They promise me it will be in Portland tomorrow.

Bonne Noel!


8 Comments so far
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Seal of Approval asked if you would knit that in your blanket and I told him that sometimes you knit us sweet stories to read. He looked confused. But he is getting up there in age.

Comment by Afton 02.13.24 @ 5:29 am

Amazing what you learn of you ask. And now you know. Can’t wait to hear if it arrived safely.

Comment by DebbieR 02.13.24 @ 7:53 am

The plants you grew up with were rhododendrons, not mountain laurel. Rhodos grow all over the Northwest. Mom

Comment by Frances Jeppson 02.13.24 @ 8:36 am

But they also grew wild and bloomed in that oval of trees between us and the Clevelands and there was one in the group of trees fronting the roadway, Mom. A knitter in Massachusetts designed her Mountain Laurel Counterpane (by Kim Salazar, for those interested) after the ones growing wild in her yard and that has been on my to-do list for years, so you’re right, they’re predominantly in the Northwest but they grow in the East, too. And we had them. They’re a favorite. Thanks!

Comment by AlisonH 02.13.24 @ 8:42 am

Your patience is #lifegoals for me.

Comment by NGS 02.13.24 @ 10:35 am

I had to laugh at the idea of them specifying “the equivalent of a hole left by a size US 8 knitting needle”–probably not how they put it, eh? Go, little plant, travel safely.

Comment by ccr in MA 02.13.24 @ 2:23 pm

This was a very interesting anecdote.
I really had never given it any thought.
Then I was glancing at a Canadian plant catalogue, and some plants could not be shipped interprovincially to Alberta or I think BC – maybe for similar plant health reasons.

Comment by Lisa R-R, Toronto 02.14.24 @ 7:09 pm

This was a very interesting anecdote.
I really had never given it any thought.
Then I was glancing at a Canadian plant catalogue, and some plants could not be shipped interprovincially to Alberta or I think BC – maybe for similar plant health reasons.

Comment by Lisa R-R, Toronto 02.14.24 @ 7:09 pm



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