PICK THE RIGHT TOOL AND PLAY IN THE DIRT AT THE WORKING GARDENER
by Millie Howie

If you need help with garden design or garden basics, the perfect place to find it is at the Working Gardener, Merede Graham’s tiny shop of gardening delights at 330 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. Merede actively seeks out quality, local garden items, and she is excited about the collection of unusual orchids, grown locally by Bob Pike that she is featuring in her live plant section.

Wall selves are filled with the largest selection of handmade Guy Wolf pots anywhere in California. New this year are pots made of Portuguese clay, which shows an artistic variation in color contrasting elegantly with the deep blue glaze around the pots’ upper edges. That delicate fragrance you may note as you walk along originates in bowls of pot pourri mixes, which you scoop out and blend to suit your own preference. All the leaves and petals are natural in blends of sweet orange, lavender rose and apple rose.

Of course, you’ll find an expanded line of Euro-tools and selected Japanese weeding and cutting tools, including the increasingly sought-after hori hori knife. And then you come to the most popular item in the shop. It’s Merede’s exclusive “digging box” with rich loam filled to a depth that gives shoppers the opportunity to try out digging and planting tools as they will actually be used in home gardens. Along with tools, Merede suggests trying Maxsea plant foods, rapidly becoming favorites with the gardening set.

On the opposite wall are comfortably shaped shears by Bahco and Felco for those pruning chores that go on all year, and on racks above them a selection of flower and vegetable seeds selected and packaged by Renee Shepherd. Here’s the chance, if you want it, to mix or match 19 varieties of sweet peas to plant immediately, or hold till early spring.

For protection while actively gardening, Merede has just added a rack of Tahoe leather garden gloves, and a personal favorite is the rose gauntlet glove with a protective, impenetrable sheath from wrist to elbow that is impervious to stabs by rose thorns.

It is now possible to shop on the website, www.workinggardener.com, and sign up for Merede’s classes in garden and floral design. Still, you can’t enjoy the digging box on the web, so it’s great fun to stop in at the Working Gardener, 330 Healdsburg Avenue. For Merede’s garden information, call 707/473-9045.