Library turns volunteer into 'secret gardener'

Crown Hill resident Drexie Malone spent five months, from June to October, picking weeds, trimming plants and removing cigarette butts in the gardens around the Ballard Public Library. She was a volunteer, but she was also an outlaw.

The library has a strict union contract that includes gardeners, so volunteers are not allowed to participate in upkeep around the grounds, branch manager Cass Mabbott said.

Malone said she was told when she started that her gardening was not allowed, but she proceeded under a "don't ask, don't tell" policy with the library, working early on Sunday mornings while the library was closed.

In late summer, a library employee told Malone to stop her gardening and leave the work to the union gardeners.

"I amiably indicated that those hard-working gardeners could use a little help since the gardens were obviously in need of maintenance," Malone said. "I did not stop, I just worked faster each week."

Malone said the same employee asked her to stop again and brought a union gardner to talk to her. She said the gardner agreed that she could keep gardening when the library was closed.

Malone was confronted a third and final time by a library employee and has now stopped gardening around the building, she said.

"Gardening should not be an exclusively union-controlled activity," Malone said. "Seattle should be able to accept vetted gardening help without turning volunteers into secret gardeners."

Malone said she only wanted to help the union gardeners, who are responsible for many city gardens. She said they do not have time to do the kind of hands-and-knees gardening she does.

She said the library grounds and landscaping were beautiful, and she wants to preserve that.

"I had a hard time looking at the maintenance and not feeling sad," she said.

Mabbott, who came on as the library manager after Malone started her gardening, said the library gets many offers for all kinds of volunteer work, but can accept very few of them. She said she recognizes Malone was not trying to do any harm.

"She really wanted to help, but she also didn't respect our wishes," Mabbott said. "I couldn't have it."

Mabbott said Malone is a nice person trying to help the community and not the first person to volunteer to weed. The library tried to show her they were not being malicious, she said.

Malone said she did not get that impression. Despite passers-by consistently thanking her, none of the library employees thanked her for her work before asking her to stop, she said.

She said it was hard to accept the library's demand to stop because they would not acknowledge that any good work had been done.

"I think it probably sounds pretty bureaucratic, but I'm happy to work in a place that has unions," Mabbott said.

Malone has stopped her secret gardening, but she is not sure it is what is best for the library and the community.

"I wonder how the Ballard Library gardens will look in the spring when the weeds begin to flourish and the litter continues to accumulate among the plant roots," she said.