Who's Who: Jim Wert

Standing in front of his house, among the riot of bright flowers which comprises his front yard garden, Jim Wert, a Berkeley resident for 25 years, stops to pinch off a spent zinnia bloom and then stoops lower to examine the progress of an emerging nasturtium sprout. “Gardening is in my blood,” he explained. “As long as I can remember, I’ve been growing things.”

Originally from Pennsylvania, Wert moved to Berkeley in 1987, buying the Northbrae house that he and his wife still live in today. Inspired by memories of his grandparents and the garden they kept, Wert immediately started to carve out the space for his own first plot. “I remembered how my grandparents had planted this whole wall of sunflowers along the road that led to their garden lot, “ Wert recollected, “and when we moved in here, the first thing I wanted to plant was the sunflowers.”

Wert works as a project manager atbut still devotes much of his free time to his garden. He, his wife, and their two kids, all participate in the ongoing project. In addition to flowers and vegetables, Wert has fruit trees, keeps chickens and rabbits, and is in the process of constructing a greenhouse. “That’s the thing about gardens,” Wert explained, “they’re ever evolving.”

Stepping deeper among the clumps of dahlias and scrub roses, Wert continues his inspection while enthusing, “Berkeley is an amazing place for gardeners. The city even has a free composting program and every month I drive down and pick mine up.” Wert claims the compost, “mixed with my secret ingredient, chicken and rabbit manure,” are what helped earn him the handfuls of ribbons he won for his cut flowers at the Alameda County Fair this year. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” Wert insisted. “There’s no place else quite like Berkeley.”