The Zen Gardener

I was fortunate enough to play golf recently at Covered Bridge, the home course of senior tour player Fuzzy Zoeller. A former Masters Champion, Zoeller has built a terrific golf course nestled on a gently rolling plain at the foot of Southern Indiana’s famous Floyds Knobs.

There were numerous lakes, a meandering creek and trees everywhere. Just the right kind of course for an18-handicapper like me! Yah right. The Zoysia grass fairways made it feel almost like hitting each shot off a tee. The greens were true, the rough fair and the company terrific. It was so good in fact that I won my first scramble tournament in my golfing life with my tremendous teammates. My secret to success? Play a scramble with partners who are better than you. I’m proud of my Fuzzy Zoeller head cover, complete with his famous sunglasses. I can now die peacefully knowing I’ve crossed another goal off my list – winning a golf tournament. Boy, do I need a life!

We played at 8 a.m. in the morning on a beautifully sunny day. With corn fields and cows around us, it brought back a lot of memories of my early days of playing golf and appreciation for green spaces. I grew up on a farm, as you may recall. In previous messages I even spoke of a baseball park and whiffle ball golf course on the hobby farm my parents owned.

I also spoke of the first “real” golf course I ever played on, a nine-hole course called Crow Greens Golf Course. It was on the banks of the mighty Crow River about 30 miles west of Minneapolis. The owners took a cow pasture and turned it into a golf course.

How things have changed from those early teenage years to today – 40-plus years later. Instead of parched grass on a hot day in August walking with my used set of $30 golf clubs (I split the set with brother Dan – he got the two and four woods, plus three, five, seven and nine irons, while I got a driver, three wood, plus two, four, six and eight irons) that had been tied with twine to the back of my bike, I’m playing on a beautifully maintained Fuzzy Zoeller course.

But have things really changed from back in the early 1960s? In some ways, no. You still hit a white ball with dimples off a tee, down the fairway (or rough usually in my case), onto the green and in the hole. Only today as I play, I probably appreciate more the green spaces I walk through. Back then I was only worried about getting an occasional par, not losing any balls in the surrounding cow pastures and hoping it wouldn’t rain on my five-mile bike ride back home.

But in some ways, definitely yes. Today the Green Industry, whether on a golf course, sports field, home landscape, community parks, boulevards, etc., is constantly defending the right to use the proper products and services to maintain those green spaces.

Yes, consumers must be prudent in their use of water to keep lawns and landscapes healthy. Equipment should always be properly maintained; fertilizers and products to eliminate weeds, insects and diseases must be used at properly labeled rates.

Those who blindly believe that those who work every day in the Green Industry aren’t concerned about the green spaces around us are in need of the Project EverGreen message more than ever.

Our organization has been promoting the environmental, economic and lifestyle benefits of green spaces for two and one-half years now. We have a long ways to go. But now that I’ve won my first scramble golf tournament, anything’s possible, right? You’d have to see me golf to appreciate that.

Watch our web site – www.projectevergreen.com and www.yardenthusiasts.com in the months ahead as we pursue our goals of educating and informing consumers about the benefits of well-maintained green spaces. We have many new projects set to go, including the start of a pilot project in the city of Akron, Ohio, in January where we plan to blanket the city with “green” messages.

Call us and let us know how you can help and be part of this great initiative. Why? Because Green Matters of course.

Hello fellow green space enthusiasts! Ever heard of Gardendale Country Club? Probably not -- unless you were born and raised in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Delano, Minn., about 30 miles west of Minneapolis. Gardendale Country Club was created by my twin brother Dan and I on our hobby farm when we were youngsters.

The sign included with this piece is the actual sign we painted back then to draw crowds to the club. It was a nine-hole whiffle-ball course, complete with flags and tees. The holes swung around the chicken barn, the clothesline, the pump house, and various other locations. We had a great time cutting fairways and greens and tees with the lawn mower (Lawn Boy as I recall).

Friends would come out to the country from town to play, as we whiled away the hours pretending to be Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Tom Weiskopf and others. Sorry, we didn't have any females playing with us or we would have added Patty Berg and a few others to the list.
 
You see, well-managed green spaces have always been a part of my life. We graduated from whiffle-ball golf when I was 13 to a new nine-hole golf course that opened five miles away. We would tie our used golf clubs on the back of our bikes with twine string, then head off to Crow Greens Golf Club. It was built out of an old cow pasture. Kinda played like one too, but we didn't care. It was a real golf course.
 
Why am I reminiscing? Because Project EverGreen, which created Yard Enthusiasts of America, recently announced its Because Green Matters Award winners for 2007. They are Verandah, Bonita Bay Group's master-planned golf community near Fort Myers, FL; and the Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort/Stone Mountain Golf Club near Atlanta. Each of these two properties have thoroughly integrated promotion and preservation of green spaces into their planning. "Wow" is about all I'm left with when I think about these two organizations.
 
For example, Verandah was the first community to achieve certification as a Green Development by Florida's Green Building Coalition. Walk through Verandah on one of its many trails and you feel like you're back decades ago wandering through the picturesque marshes admiring everything from the spectacular foliage and wild flowers to armadillos and alligators. Throw in 36 holes of golf and it's a real panacea for someone like me.
 
Meanwhile, 16 miles from Atlanta is the Marriott property that says it "validates our constant efforts to apply 'environomics' which is the practice of preserving green space in harmony with operating a successful business." I've met Anthony Williams, the director of grounds there, and he has a passion unequaled in our business when it comes to taking care of green spaces. The property is a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, its converted 12 acres to native grass/windflowers habitat, and has comprehensive programs for water management, wildlife habitat preservation and integrated pest management.
 
We make our Because Green Matters winner announcements on Earth Day each year. Anthony was a little busy that day -- April 22 -- helping to give away 700 trees for planting by those staying at the complex.
 
These properties exemplify what Project EverGreen's mission is all about -- raising awareness of the environmental, economic and lifestyle benefits of green spaces. What a thrill for me to work with this organization and our companion club Yard Enthusiasts of America to bring this message to the public. The green, green grass of home seems a long time ago. It's organizations like our two winners who bring back the good times of my youth. I can't help but smile when I think about it.

Welcome to YEA! (Yard Enthusiasts of America). Wow, this is the culmination
of nearly three years of work as hundreds of volunteers across the country have
found out about Project EverGreen and are enthused about what we're trying
to accomplish for consumers getting information on well-maintained green spaces. Project EverGreen is proud to sponsor YEA! But before I say more...

I grew up on a farm near a small town just 30 miles west of Minneapolis back
in the late 1950s and 1960s. Talk about the best of both worlds in my world
of green. Small-town America, near the "big city," growing up on a farm. My dad
is totally responsible for my love of green spaces. Soon we will be
celebrating (and I mean celebrating) the sixth anniversary of his death. I think
about him a lot, but specifically just a few days ago. I spent a day last
week in Fort Myers, Florida at Hammond Stadium presenting the Minnesota Twins
with Project EverGreen's Stewardship Award for refurbishing 200-plus softball
and baseball fields.

What does that have to do with my dad? My dad didn't refurbish a baseball
field for me when I was a kid growing up on the farm. He BUILT me (and my twin
brother Dan) a baseball field in the cow pasture. It was complete with a
backstop, infield perfectly manicured (well, almost, except where the sheep did
their thing too often near second base -- great for sliding), a snow fence is
left, and in right field a wire fence that housed the hogs. Arizona may have
its swimming pool in right field, and the Green Monster will always be a
special wall in Boston, but I'll bet there aren't too many ball parks where, when
you hit a home run, you have to jump over the right field fence and run into the
pig pen to retrieve the baseball. Geez, the memories.

My point? My dad built us a baseball field to appreciate green. He built us
a baseball field to appreciate the outdoors and use that green space. He built
us that baseball field so we'd have a keen interest in sports (someday I'll
tell you about the football field he built for us too). He built us a
baseball field so we'd learn how to care for sheep and make it seem like we were
having fun while we did it. Sometimes I wish I'd have told him more often how
much I appreciated that ball yard. Especially when I pretended to be Mickey
Mantle hitting a towering home run into the pig pen.

Dad is looking down on me now from his green spaces in the sky. He knows
about the importance of maintaining green spaces. That's why he always had so
many chores for us on the farm after mowing and trimming the field (and the rest
of our yard to boot on a weekly basis during the summer).

YEA! is about appreciating green spaces in your own yard. I know how lucky I
was to have been enlightened about the importance of well-maintained green
spaces. Play ball!