With cucumbers and clogs, stars give gardening viral appeal

This may be remembered as the year of the celebrity garden. From comedians to ousted royals and reality TV stars, a lot of famous folks have been showing off their growing prowess.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan fessed up to having a gardening problem on “CBS Sunday Morning.” The problem was that once again he grew far more cucumbers than his family could possibly have interest in eating.

Late night host Jimmy Fallon grew cucumbers too. Well, not quite. He grew one cucumber in a small pot and was so thrilled with the accomplishment that he invited a star sushi chef to his show to use it in a dish and then fed it to actress Jessica Chastain.

Meanwhile Meghan Markle was hosting chef Alice Waters in her seemingly flawless California garden and irritating half the internet with her soft focus, perpetual golden hour reality series. In the process of harvesting enviable vegetables in a raised bed garden, she managed to make French garden clogs that I once mocked in this column when they were on a New York Times “Gifts for Gardeners” list go viral.

And, of course, a Kardashian would be in on the celebrity garden trend. Kris Jenner (manager mom to the Kardashian clan) has been sharing glimpses of her garden with her more than 50 million followers on Instagram. The news editor for Homes and Gardens magazine’s website declared it “the best example of vertical planting I’ve ever seen.” 

“Seen” seems like a stretch since it appears that the entire gushing story of Jenner’s garden, which describes “green ivy plants” and “mid-height bushes” is based off a social media post the editor saw and then declared that the reality star has “unlocked the secret to creating a vertical garden.”

Of course Jenner didn’t design the garden. Credit for that goes to Waldo Fernandez and Clements Design. And although information on who maintains the garden isn’t available, I’m willing to bet my garden column paycheck that it’s not Jenner.

The celebrity gardens and the anecdotes from them are amusing. They are also encouraging, not in a “if celebrities can do it, so can I” kind of way, but in a “garden is so cool, celebrities brag about it” way. More gardeners is always a good thing, for the hobby, for the Earth and for a society that gains a better understanding of how food is grown.

Meghan Markle might have terrible taste in gardening footwear and I don’t know how much of the gardening she actually does, but her garden is beautiful enough to make anyone want one in their backyard.

If the latest group of celebrity gardeners inspires people to give growing a chance, I hope they aim to garden like Gaffigan, who says he got himself into that cucumber pickle by succession sowing. He may have ended up with what sounds like an entire garden of cucumbers, but there are far worse problems he could have. 

It could have been zucchini.