I’m Cookie Wherry, the inventor of WEDGIE®. I live in a high-rise condo in Chicago with my husband, teenage daughter and two cats. I’m a Master Gardener and a docent at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. I grew up on a farm – plants are in my blood.
One doesn’t need a lot of space to take up gardening; one can use containers which come in all shapes and sizes. The one downside to container gardening has always been the spilled dirt that occurs when planting with a trowel. And quite simply, I invented WEDGIE® to end the clean-up time on my balcony. Instead of digging out dirt, I decided to create openings for plants a different way.
Wondering if other gardeners would be interested in WEDGIE®, I had a prototype made.
With prototype in hand and wearing a t-shirt that read, ‘Ask me about WEDGIE™ World’s Best New Gardening Tool’, I attended the Chicago Flower & Garden Show in the spring of 2002. The enthusiastic response it received, with people asking how much it cost and where they could buy it, convinced me that there was indeed a market for WEDGIE®. It was time to tweak the design a bit, find a manufacturer, enlist the services of my daughter as a hand model for publicity photos….
The raw concept evolved into the bright-yellow, lightweight, durable tool you see today. The easy-to-hold knob handle was designed so that arthritis sufferers like me could maneuver the tool with just the palm of the hand if need be.
I won’t say it’s easy to get a new product into the marketplace. I had a lot of help from my husband and from friends. But I’ve not for a moment regretted doing it. There’s a great deal of personal satisfaction in creating something which others find so useful. I hope you will, too.
Thanks for visiting my website.
Happy Gardening!
