Human Flower Project

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Girl Gangs and Gardening

A group of Austin women breaks bread and ground.

Carole Goltze’s “Secret Garden” cake

served to the Divas of the Dirt

September 2006, Austin, TX

Photo: Shelley Wood, Austin American-Statesman

We admit to a certain squeamishness about women’s groups. Is this self-hatred?  Probably.

There are other considerations, though: an aversion to high-pitched voices (Renee Fleming not included),  growing up with brothers only, thirteen years in an all-girls’ school….

But truth is when it comes time to ask for human help, we lean on other women. Why? Because they come through and usually don’t hold it over your head (or some other anatomical part) for eternity.

Julie Bonnin’s story in today’s Austin American-Statesman features a gang of mutual leaners who garden and socialize together under the name Divas of the Dirt. They meet monthly to tackle a gardening project for one of their seven members, meanwhile catching up on each other’s lives and enjoying the lucky garden-owner’s hospitality: i.e. breakfast and lunch.

Divas of the Dirt, Austin, Texas: from left, Diane Goode, Sue Boatman, Macky Barrow, Ellen Grimmett, Carole Goltze, (kneeling) Shanda Sansing and Kathy Kloba

Photo: Amber Novak, Austin American-Statesman

“The focus of our group isn’t on achieving specific results,” says “Diva” Kathy Kloba (a.k.a. The Transplantable Rose). “We’re not just free labor for each other. We want the fun and companionship as much as we want the gardening help.”

At a women’s only gathering last weekend, we took part in a “volunteer swap” and offered gardening assistance to someone we met there. We’ll see if she takes us up on the offer and, if she does, how “fun” that turns out to be.

Forty years ago, women tended to gather in “garden clubs” with a different air about them: more leisurely noblesse, less grunt. Gradually, these established groups, too, have been changing their focus from “beautification” (which today has non-feminist overtones of triviality) to “serious” endeavors like conservation. The same social currents have eroded the old day lily, orchid and daffodil societies. Instead of “African violet fanciers”  we have the can-do brassiness of Divas—the cult of “loveliness” supplanted by “attitude.” Below changing styles, though, one can see the simple act of mutual help—a necessity—running like the root of bamboo. That’s worth a crock-pot of social discomfort.

Kloba says that Dirt-Divadom is “like hanging out with the cool kids. It’s like I’m on the cheerleading squad.” Oh Kathy, we wish you hadn’t said that….shades of the Louisville Collegiate School for Girls. And we never did master the splits.