GreenPrints 83

No. 83 $ 6.OO

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GREENPRINTS “THE WEEDER’S DIGEST”

P. 16 SEEDS SAVED ME! P. 20 MINE . . . FOR A DAY 1

P.64 THE PLANT-IT KIDS

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At The Gate

I SHELLEY JACKSON

started work on this issue on a warm, wonderful, popping-withgreen day in my favorite month of the year: June. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to think about the end of the growing season, the prospect 5-for-4 (for you) of winter. I wanted to stay right here in I hope you will take the heart of summer. us up on the special Ah, but the stories. They grabbed me holiday 5-for-4 offer we tight and wrapped me up in the season of make on the attached reflection, winding down, and endings. card. Gift subscriptions They also made me appreciate, more are a great way to show than ever, how cyclical GREENPRINTS is. family and friends that Winter issues are a mixture of peace and you care—and to keep promise. Springs’ are packed with activity this little literary garden and excitement. Summers’ have—surof yours growing prise!—lots of humor; I guess our great for years to come. winter-spring plans often involve biting off more than we can grow. And Fall issues truly do put the year, and life, in perspective. Isn’t it interesting that time moves simultaneously round in a circle and forward in a line, sort of the same way light is both a wave and a particle? And something there is about the circle of gardening seasons that makes that moving-on line part of time much easier to accept. Even, in time, to take comfort in.

Pat Stone, Editor 3

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BEA EAU EA AUTY T FRO R M BULBS RO Aft Af fter a long, cold winter, r there is nothing better fo r, f r onee’s spirits than the hopefu f l emergence of early crocus fu and galanthus fo f llowe w d by swe we w eping drift we f s of narcissi ft and vibrant swaths of colorfu f l tulips we fu w lcoming us back to our gardens. It is hard to imagine a spring without the beauty t of bulbs gracing our fa ty f mily’s lives.

If yo y u would like to bring the special a beauty al t of ty f owe fl w r bulbs to yo we y ur fa f mily’s garden, please contact our fa f mily’s companies fo f r a copy of Va V n Engelen’s 52-page wh w olesal a e price list or John Scheepers’ al 88-page color catalog. We W off ffe ff fer over 800 varieties of the best fl f owe w r bulbs fr we f om the annual Dutch harvest at the very best prices.

Narcissi • Tu T lips • Scilla • Hyacinth • Anemones Leucojum • Camassia • Al A lium • Lilies • Muscari Amaryl y lis • Galanthus • Fritillaria • Crocus yl Chionodoxa • Iris • Paperwh w ites • Eremurus wh 23 Tulip Drive PO Box 638 Bantam m, CT 06750 Phone:: (860) 567-87344 Fax: (860) 567-53233 www ww ww.vvanengelen.com ST83

John Scheepers

23 Tulip Drive PO Box 638 Bantam, CT 06750 Phone: (860) 567-0838 Fax: (860) 567-5323 www ww ww.johnscheepers.com

See r v i ng S n g America’s ffi nest gga rd rde d e ns ffo r over 100 yyears r! rs

JJohn h S Scheepers h

K tchen Garden SeedsTM Ki

23 Tu T lip Drive • PO Box 638 Bantam, Connecticut 06750-0638 Phone: (860) 567-6086 • Fax a : (860) 567-5323 ax www ww ww. w.kitchengardenseeds.com

FEA EAS EA ASTS T FRO R M SEE RO E DS EE A we As w nestle into our homes aft f er hav ft a ing av put our gardens to bed fo f r the winter, r we r, w can relax a a bit and enj ax n oy the fr nj f uits of our labor~sav a ory dinners bursting with the essenceav off summer taste fr ff om our own gardens. Homemade soups, roasted vegetables, pasta sauces, herbed breads, chutneys y , jams, ys and special vinegars and oils spiced with sprigs of fr f esh herbs.

Our new e Ki ew K tc tch chen Ga G rd rde den Se See eed eds ds catal a og wi al w ll be av ava vailable in early January wi w th a distinctive v line of gourmet ve ve v getable, herb and fl f ow owe wer seeds . . . and the promise of delectable summer fe f asts. Please contact us fo f r our 52-page catalog complete with tantalizing recipes fr f om renown U.S. chefs f , practical gardening fs tips fr f om Barbara Damrosch and precious illustrations by Bobbi Angell.

Parsnips • Salvia • Artichokes • Shallots • Broccoli • Melons • Beans • Corn • Leeks Straw a berries • Herbs • Squash • Cosmos • Eggplant • Peas • To aw T matoes • Endive Lav a atera • Onions • Peppers • Potatoes • Salad Greens • Dianthus • Edible Flowers av Sweet Peas • Asparagus • Garlic • Cabbage • Spinach • Nasturtiums • Sunfl f owers fl ST83

S rving Se n America’s fi ng f nest ga g rd rde dens fo f r over 100 years r! rs

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2O1O This issue’s “family photo” is on p. 58. So here’s an extra shot from Summer 2010: Tucker on his way to visit his best buddy, Noah Crosson—in Chile!

The truly amazing thing about the trip, in my book, is that it was his brother ther N Nate’s idea. Nate realized that, of all the children, Tucker had never had a chance to travel abroad . . . so he persuaded the rest of us to chip in and get Tuck an airline ticket for his birthday. (W (What a remarkably sweet thing to do!)

At press time, Tucker still wasn’t wasn’ back—so we haven't yet heard about all his adventures!

REENPRINTS,

“The Weeder’s Digest”™ is brought to you by Pat (Editor, pat@greenprints.com) and Becky (Circulation, becky@greenprints.com) Stone and Circulation Assistant Julie Wander, with occasional mailing help from Nate, Jesse, Sammy, and Tucker Stone (828/628-5452; www.greenprints.com). Contributing Editors: Mike McGrath, Geoffrey Taylor, Diana Wells, and Becky Rupp. Contents © 2010 by GREENPRINTS®. Allow four to six weeks for subscription fulfillment. Please notify us when you change your address! Writer’s Guidelines (also Artist’s) available at website or by mail (send Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope). Submissions are read in Nov., Feb., May, and Aug. (send SASE).

GREENPRINTS® (ISSN 1064-0118) is published quarterly by GreenPrints Enterprises, P.O. Box 1355, Fairview, NC 28730. Subscriptions are $22.97 for four issues ($26 to Canada and Mexico. $32 to England. U.S. Funds only) from GREENPRINTS, P.O. Box 1355, Fairview, NC 28730. Periodicals postage paid at Fairview, NC, and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to GREENPRINTS, P.O. Box 1355, Fairview, NC 28730.

Cover art by Christina Hess 5

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nursery catalog when it struck me: Someone should write a story using all these wonderful apple names. Since I come from the famous apple state Kathryn Schultz: Schultz After this piece (WA), that somone was me.” was written, OH’s Kathryn did get a new job . . . and her son made the Heather eather King: King LA’s Heather is a college cross-country team!

National Public Radio commentator and writer for T The Los Angeles Times, Grace MacNair: With interests House Beautiful, and Utne Reader. in women’s issues and the Third World, Grace has worked as a birth Joyce Carpenter C rpenter: A three-time past doula in India. She’s also a neighbor contributor to GP (Issues 73, 75, & of mine since her childhood!

80), Joyce recently moved from FL to Alexandria, VA. Ginger Webb: Webb A hospice social worker, Ginger Glen Headland: Glen lives enjoys gardening “in the in Devon, England, where dappled shade of our she writes, lectures on garNew England hilltop dening and writing, and backyard.” plays with her camera. She is a writer at helium.com.

Doug Clore: Doug is a former librarian, current Nancy Hill: Hill A Portland, househusband, smallOR, photographer (www. scale gardener, and part-time writer nancyhillphotography.com), Nancy is for helium.com in St. Joseph, MI. creating a fairy garden in her yard to be the setting for a children’s Brenda Rees: “I am a professional story. writer and avid reader of your magazine, but I never thought I would Charles Goodrich: Charles has an have any submission for you—that earlier book of poems, Insects of is, until Rocky came.”

South Corvallis (and other works).

He is currently a program director Patricia Starzyk: “I was reading a at Oregon State University.

LINDA COOK DEVONA

B U D S

C R E D I T S

“To My Gardens Throng” (p. 19) sent in by Linda Bell of Knoxville, TN. “A Little Flower” (p. 39) sent in by Barbara Miller of Boulder, CO. “Green Tree in Your Heart” (p. 63) sent in by Grace Lefever of Spring Grove. PA. Contribute your favorite garden quote to“Buds.” If we use it, we’ll give you a year’s subscription.

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SHELLEY JACKSON

Contributors

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GreenPrints

Autumn, 2O1O #83

A Walk in Indiana .......................................................................................... 12

By Kathryn Schultz Saved by Seeds ............................................................................................... 16

By Grace MacNair The Perfect Chinese Lantern ....................................................................... 20

By Ginger Webb Feline Fertilizer .............................................................................................. 24

By Doug Clore Plant TV ........................................................................................................... 26

By Becky Rupp My Daughter, the Tortoise ........................................................................... 30

By Brenda Rees The Amazing Adventures of Orchid-Man! .............................................. 34

By Mike McGrath Repetitions ...................................................................................................... 40

By Diana Wells Grand Theft, Tree ........................................................................................... 44

By Patricia Starzyk Epidendrum .................................................................................................... 50

By Heather King Oscar the Doofus ........................................................................................... 54

By Joyce Carpenter The Lion Sleeps Tonight ight .............................................................................. 60

By Glen Headland The PlantIt Kids ............................................................................................. 64

By Nancy Hill Five Prose Poems ........................................................................................... 70

By Charles Goodrich 7

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A Walk in Indiana

Finding a moment of peace between “was” and “will be.” By Kathryn Schultz 12

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ast October I found myself alone in the college town of Valparaiso, Indiana, with a whole evening ahead of me and nothing I needed to do. I had just driven five hours with my oldest son, a high-school senior, so he could spend a night and a day at the college he hoped to attend.

Because we had been confined together in the car on such a long drive, he had talked to me more than he had in months. He had just completed his last high-school cross-country meet the day I felt that before; he had been a little bit ill and had not I had nothing finished well. His team did not advance to to look forward the regional meet, and he felt he had let them to but loss. down. He was deeply disappointed that his high-school running career ended the way it did, and he would not be comforted by any words from me. But when we talked about college next year, he was full of enthusiasm.

He was approaching the first major crossroads of his life and was ready to charge ahead.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY NICOLE TAMARIN

was approaching some crossroads in my life, as well, but I felt that I had nothing to look forward to but loss. My son’s leaving for college would be the beginning of the end of parenthood, as I had known it. A quarter of our family would be gone, and I wondered what it would be like with just the three of us left in the house. I was also going to lose my job in a few months and had not yet found another one. I was beginning to wonder if I was too old to find a new job.

And we were dealing with a much bigger loss: My husband’s beloved grandfather had died that spring at 100. About the same time, his daughter, my mother-in-law, had been moved to a nursing home for Alzheimer’s patients. My husband and his brothers had just sold the house where they had all lived together. It had been in the family since 1915.

Grandpa had been a gardener all his life. “Some people say I grow the best cabbages in town,” he used to tell me, and that was as close as he ever came to bragging. His garden was always meticulously weeded, neatly edged in yellow marigolds, and, by 13

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late summer, exuberant with sprawling tomatoes and big, leafy cabbages. Until he retired from his business at 81, he used to spend every spring and summer evening in the garden, nattily dressed in a worn-out white dress shirt and pants with suspenders. When the shirts got even more worn out, they were hung in the garden with aluminum foil pie plates dangling from the sleeves, to keep the birds and rabbits away.

Grandpa kept gardening until he was in his 90’s. The garden eventually got smaller and was moved closer to the house so he wouldn’t have so far to walk. His daughter began helping him, and he took a lot of breaks in a lawn chair. But it got too hard for him to bend down to the plants, to walk on the soft and uneven ground, and he couldn’t see the weeds as well as he used to. Finally one summer there was just a long stretch of uninterrupted lawn. ll of this was on my mind when I left my son at the dorm for the evening and decided to take a walk. The sun was low and in a clear sky, and the evening was taking on a real autumn chill. It felt like we’d have frost that night. There were pumpkins on porch steps and election signs in front yards, and someone had cut down their tomato plants and left them by the curb for trash pickup.

I walked north for about a mile and was about to turn around when I spotted what looked like a large garden at the corner up ahead. I had to investigate. It turned out to be a beautiful little municipal park, with walkI stood in ing paths radiating out from a gazebo, and beds of perennials and annuals in between. this garden, was surprised at how many plants were this unexpected Istill blooming—someone had done some gift, and my careful planning here. There were asters and chrysanthemums, dahlias and heliotrope, soul became and even a foxglove in bloom. Four beds of quiet. bushy old-fashioned roses bloomed on this chilly October evening like it was the middle of June. Clumps of tall grass in full feather waved in the breeze, almost silhouettes in the slanting sunlight.

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One of the paths was lined with fruit trees, crabapple maybe, all leafless now. Each tree had a plaque at its base, and when I got close enough to read them I saw that each tree had been dedicated to someone’s memory. Those people were gone, but they had become part of this park. I knew what the families of those memorialized persons had been thinking: Some essence of our loved ones has to be saved. That spring I had copied Grandpa’s custom and planted a border of marigolds around my own little vegetable garden. Two of his birdhouses now hung in our b a ckyard. And my husband, who had never shown much interest in our garden, had taken over a third of it for himself. No one will see these small memorials but us, but they help us feel that we’re preserving some part of Grandpa. It took 100 years for all of him to accumulate: It can’t all just vanish with his passing. stood in this garden, this unexpected gift, and my soul became quiet. There is something about stepping into a garden, whether it’s the garden behind my house or one far from home, that’s like submerging oneself in a pond.

To spend time with the beauty and well-being of plants is to be set loose from everyday demands, and even from the distress of change and loss. In a garden there is time to be still. Time to look back. Time to look forward.

And time to let go and let be. ❖ 15

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Saved by Seeds Instead of the other way around.

By Grace MacNair ❖

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pride myself on being a seed saver. I feel a bit heroic when I open my seed-saving shoebox filled with helpless packets, all dependent on my kindness. They’re precious to me. In the face of massive seed extinction, my faithful dedication to seed saving is going to help preserve heirloom vegetables. I’m going to be the veggie version of Noah, and my shoebox a tiny replica of the Ark. At least that’s how I used to feel. But you know what they say about pride and falls, don’t you? Who would think, of all the prideful areas in my life, I’d have a fall over this?! n a bright day in October, I was pulled over by a cop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (I’m a student at the university there). This was my first run-in with the police.

I didn’t know what to do. I started shaking. Omigosh, what had I done wrong?

A burly officer came up to my car window. “Ma’am, could I see your license and registration, please?”

“Yes, umm, yes, of course, of course! But, um, I’m not sure why you pulled me over.”

“Ma’am, your tags are two years out of date. If you didn’t know, that’s against the law.”

I clapped my hands to my face. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! You see, my sister just brought down this car for me and I’ve only had it for two days and I didn’t think to check the tags officer because it’s her car and I just got it and I didn’t think it could be out of date I mean how could she have been driving it all this—” “Ma’am, all I need is your license and registration.”

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY HANNAH ENGLAND

Yes, I was nervous. Yes, I was babbling. But I was also stalling: Where had my sister put the registration?! I rooted around in the center console of the car but only unearthed about 30 packets of seeds. By this time, a second policeman had joined the first. They were both staring curiously as seed packets flew around the car. I opened the dashboard—and a torrent of beet packs spilled out. I raked them into my lap and proceeded to stick my entire head into I started the dashboard. shaking.

The second cop spoke. “Ma’am, if you Omigosh, what can’t find your registration, we’re going to had I done have to give you another ticket.”

“NO!” my voice resounded out of the wrong? dashboard. “No, no, no. I’m sure it’s in here.

It’s just, uh, hiding. You see, a friend just gave me a bunch of seeds and I didn’t have a spare shoebox—I keep my seeds in shoeboxes, you know, I save seeds, lots of seeds—and I was moving so I just stuffed them all in my car and now I just really if you can wait 17

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one minute just one teensy tiny minute I’m sure . . . ” By the time I found the registration, seed packages were everywhere. They had settled in drifts in my lap and on the passenger seat. They were piled like leaves on the car floor. If I hadn’t been so stressed, I would have thought all those bright packs of beets, carrots, spinach, arugula, kobucha squash, sunflowers, and kale rather beautiful. I accidentally handed the cop two packs of dinosaur kale and one of daikon radish along with my registration.

“Here! Here it is!” I cried.

The cops sauntered back to their flashing vehicles. I grabbed a package of Benjamin Buttons—I mean, Bachelor Buttons—and started talking out loud to them: What am I going to do?!

I can’t afford a ticket right now!

What if my insurance goes up?

Darn it, why didn’t I check the tags?

By the time the cops returned, Benjamin—Bachelor!—and I had decided that I was doomed to eating beans and rice for the rest of the semester.

The policemen looked down at me. If I hadn’t been so stressed, I might have noticed something: They were both trying hard not to grin!

“Ma’am, here’s your registration and your seeds back,” the first one said. “I’m probably one of the only cops in Chapel Hill who would let this slide. You need to renew your tags ASAP because, like I said, anyone else will give you a ticket.”

“Oh! Thank you so much! I’ll renew my tags first thing tomorrow, officer, really. I just had no idea. I promise. Umm, would you like this packet of Bachelor Buttons?”

“Uh, you mean flowers?”

“Yes. They’re beautiful. You could plant them next summer.

I have plenty!”

“Umm, yes, I can see that. But it’s against the law for me to, umm, well . . . OK. My wife grows a lot of flowers.”

I shoved the seeds into his gloved hand, said “Thank you thank you thank you” again and again, and drove off.

Me save seeds? Heck, this time the seeds saved me. ❖ 18

BUDS

MIKE BIEGEL

If I could put my words in song, And tell what’s there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng, And leave the cities void.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson 19

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The Perfect Chinese Lantern At last it was mine. For a day.

By Ginger Webb

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ILLUSTRATION BY SUSAN DRUCKER

here it sat, tucked under a bench, hidden away from the other garden ornaments: the perfect Chinese lantern. My husband had been admiring them when we strolled through garden stores. “It would be nice to have one of those in our backyard,” he’d hint.

We already had a few statues. St. Francis stood on the flagstone in front of the coneflowers, the Buddha meditated peacefully on top of a granite outcropping in our backyard, and a little fairy sat reading a book amongst the pinks at the corner of the house. But we had a short path “Twenty-eight that curled back through the trees to where the lilies of the valley grew. We needed something dollars,” on the exposed granite there, to replace the I thought. silly frog statue, which wasn’t wintering well And tax-free, in our harsh Massachusetts climate.

I had been looking all over, stopping in to boot. garden centers wherever my road job took Fabulous! me. The problem was that I was looking at the end of the season, when the best statues were gone. The ones that were left were too big, too small, too beat-up—or very expensive.

I didn’t want to spend too much money, which is why I was looking in August in the first place. Garden ornaments were starting to go on sale, and our state’s back-to-school, tax-free weekend was coming. It was a good time to buy things that were normally a little out of reach.

It was also the weekend my husband went off to his annual Buddhist retreat, giving me the chance to buy things I had been secretly wanting. The first year it had been end tables for the living room, to replace our old yard-sale furniture. Ben had endorsed them when he saw them on his return. The next year, I bought a small shed for the back patio, so I could store the trash barrels out of sight.

This year I had set my sights on a Chinese lantern. It would be a nice surprise for Ben. I could imagine us strolling through the garden when he returned from his retreat. I’d be showing him the yard work I’d done while he was away, we’d walk up the little path—and there would be the lantern. It would be evening. There’d be a votive candle lit inside it, providing a romantic glow.

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The real stone ornaments were, of course, way out of my price range. I was looking at molded concrete ones, but even those were kind of pricey. But then, in a local, family-owned garden shop of all places, I found it: the perfect Chinese lantern. Good-sized and stout, it was sitting under a bench of perennial shade plants, a little moss growing on it, as though it had been waiting a long time for its owner. I couldn’t read the faded yellow price tag tied around one of its legs. I called over the teenager working there.

She got down on her knees under the bench and read it to me.

“Thirty-five dollars,” she said. “But we I was the only have a sale going on for statues, twenty one who knew percent off.” she’d made “Twenty-eight,” I thought, quickly doing the math—and tax-free, to boot. It was more a mistake. If than perfect, it was fabulous. The lantern I kept my came in three parts: a three-legged base, the mouth shut, middle lantern section, and a cap on the top. no one would The salesgirl carried it to the register, put it in a box, rung up the sale, and loaded it in be the wiser. the trunk of my car. When I got home and started unloading my prize, I was surprised at its weight.

“More like solid rock than concrete,” I thought. I carried each piece around the side of the house, and, as I did, I noted the workmanship. The molded concrete looked just like granite. I took a closer look. It was granite, hand-sculpted granite. I sat down on the steps and looked very hard at the faded yellow price tag. I could just barely make it out: CHINESE LANTERN— GRANITE $350 My heart began to beat faster. I had just bought a $350 granite carving for $28! This was the bargain of a lifetime. I set it up in the garden and admired it. Wouldn’t my husband love it!

Then I imagined the owner of that little garden center discovering the lantern was gone, and for almost nothing. No, he’d never notice, I told myself. The piece had been sitting forgotten under a bench for so long there was moss growing on the cap. Who could afford a $350 lantern, anyway? Clearly, I was doing him a favor 22

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by taking it off his hands.

I admired the statue some more. It looked perfect in that spot, a lovely piece of carved stonework sitting there on top of the exposed rock in our little woodland garden.

I thought about the teenage girl who’d sold it to me. She didn’t know concrete from granite. She hadn’t been pricing statues for weeks like I had. She couldn’t possibly know that a $35 price tag wasn’t right. I was the only one who knew she’d made a mistake.

If I kept my mouth shut, no one would be the wiser.

I sighed. Truth can be a burdensome thing.

I went inside the house and looked at the clock. It was just about closing time at the garden shop. I hesitated, then placed the call and asked to speak to the owner.

“I was just at your place,” I told him, “and bought a Chinese lantern. The tag was faded, and the girl told me it was $35. But I just got it home and realized it’s made of carved granite. I think the tag really says it’s $350.”

The owner knew the piece immediately. “Oh, yes,” he said, “she made a mistake, all right. That’s definitely not $35.”

I was secretly hoping that he would tell me to just keep it. He didn’t. He probably was hoping I’d offer to pay the real price. I couldn’t.

“I’ll bring it back after church tomorrow,” I told him. He responded gratefully.

I went into the kitchen and fixed myself a cup of tea. A couple of weeks from now, I would take Ben to the garden shop and show him the lovely carved granite lantern we had owned for 24 hours.

He would kiss me tenderly and tell me he hadn’t wanted one of those statues all that badly, anyway.

I moved the lantern from the garden to the patio, where it would be easier to load up the next day. A gentle evening breeze rose up. I brought out my cup of tea and sat down near the lantern.

I marveled at whoever had carved it out of the hard New England granite. I wondered what it was like to be able to afford such things and felt grateful that I owned this exquisite piece, even if just for a night. I savored my cup of tea, and I watched the light slowly fade on my perfect Chinese lantern. ❖ 23

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Feline Fertilizer

Don’t blame me—I just wanted to get to the game! By Doug Clore 24

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ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF CROSBY

t was a Friday afternoon in early fall, and, boy, was I looking forward to a relaxing hour of sitting and sipping on a cup of coffee before heading out to the local high-school football game.

It had been a long week. I had earned a few minutes of peace and rest. I was nearly dozing when my sweet wife’s voice interrupted my reverie.

“Honey, would you do something for me I grabbed the before you leave?”

I figured she just needed me to grab a spreader and set package she couldn’t reach or maybe run a new lawn-care a second set of eyes over a column of figrecord, literally ures—and I’m ever looking for ways to score points with my better half. So I answered, running around “Sure, honey. What is it?” the yard.

Imagine my surprise when she sweetly asked me to fertilize the lawn before I went to the game!

“Are you kidding?” I whined. “I worked hard all week, and all I want now is a few minutes to sit with my coffee, and you want me to do that?”

Sigh. I knew I would end up doing it anyway, so after an appropriate amount of huffing and puffing, I asked her the location of the fertilizer—hoping, vainly, that we didn’t have any. Just as I feared, she said there was plenty left and that it was under the stairs in the basement. I grabbed the fertilizer and the spreader and set a new lawn-care record, literally running around the yard.

Then I grabbed my cap and rushed out the door. I made the game just before kickoff.

Three hours later, I came home to a dark house (football games generally last beyond my wife’s bedtime). When I turned on the light, I discovered this note on the dining-room table, on top of the empty sack I had left next to the spreader: My Dear Overworked Husband, Not that the neighborhood cats won’t appreciate this, but next time could you please spread fertilizer on the lawn instead of kitty litter?

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Plant TV Jonathon Keats’s watch it. Do yours?

By Becky Rupp ●

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It never occurred to me that our garden might be . . . bored.

After all, stuff happens in it all the time. The sun shines.

It rains. Bugs visit. Rufus, our youngest son’s cat, naps in the lettuce, and every once in a while a rabbit or a tractor passes by. The pace is a little slow, maybe, but—face it—that’s what you get when you’re born a country tomato in Vermont and not a city aspidistra in some splashy casino lobby in Las Vegas. And anyway, what more could a plant want? Bloom where you’re planted, is what I think.

But then I found out about Jonathon Keats and plant TV. Keats—whose longish hair, spectacles, bowtie, and tweeds make him look like a misplaced 1920’s Oxford don—is a conceptual artist/experimental philosopher, presently living in San Francisco.

And frankly, reading his (so far) life story, I find myself royally resenting my high-school guidance counselor, who never ever mentioned such a cool career possibility as conceptual artist/experimental philosopher. Just a bit of a prod in the right direction and—who knows?—I too could have been composing “1001 Concertos for Tuning Forks and Audience” or choreographing ballets 26

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for honeybees. It’s not that I regret the biology major exactly. But I feel deceived.

Keats is perhaps best known for his 2004 attempt to genetically engineer God. (The aim was to discover just where the Deity belongs on the phylogenetic tree; preliminary results suggest a divine relationship to cyanobacteria.)

He has also assembled do-ityourself kits for creating new universes (contents: a drinking straw, a Mason jar, and a piece of chewing gum), invented an electronic voting booth based on a nationwide network of Ouija boards, and—pointing out that the present-day matter-based economy is pretty much kaput—founded the First Bank of Antimatter, whose currency is backed not by gold or silver, but by positrons.

In 2007 he came up with a ring tone for cell phones based on composer John Cage’s controversial work 4’33”. It consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of absolute digital silence, and can be deeply appreciated by anyone who has ever been trapped in an airport waiting area between highly social persons whose mobile phones respectively play the Star Trek theme tune and the opening salvo of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” In 2009, he wrote “The Longest Story Ever Told,” printed with an inking technol- It never occurred ogy that, upon exposure to ultraviolet light, to me that allows a new word to appear at the rate of our garden one per hundred years. You can find the story on the cover of the June 2009 issue of Opium might be . . .

Magazine: Just put your copy in a sunny spot bored. on the porch, alert your heirs, and wait.

And he is the originator of plant TV, a genre invented to entertain the botanically bored.

Keats offers a choice of video programs for plants, played on a television screen anchored up near the ceiling, which the audience watches from its pots in rows on the floor. At the lowbrow end of 27

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the plant TV scale is what Keats describes as plant porn—sleazy sequences of bees pollinating flowers—originally aired for lucky rhododendrons and zinnias in Chico, California, and Bozeman, Montana. His latest plant TV project, however, is more familyfriendly. Titled “Strange Skies,” it’s a plant-targeted travel documentary—a six-and-a-half-minute loop of the changing sky over Italy—recently shown in New York City to a group of potted palms and ficus plants. Keats explains that plants, being immobile, may be particularly interested in the experience of travel.

All right, I thought. Here we have yet another example of the rural/urban cultural divide. We get tractor pulls; they get the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We get rubber boots; they get hand-tooled leather. Our plants get free-range drizzle; theirs get Italian TV. Once I fell into that mindset, our garden started looking positively underprivileged. I mean basically there’s nothing in it for those plants but dirt, and in parts of it—the bits behind the barn, for example—the plants don’t even have a view.

Maybe we should get some whirligigs, I thought guiltily. Or at least open the kitchen window and turn up the volume on NPR. Then I realized that Jonathon Keats is no gardener.

Now don’t get me wrong: I love Jonathon Keats. Who can resist a guy who copyrights his brain (declaring it a sculpture, built from original thoughts) and then sells futures on it to investors?

Or who creates extraterrestrial abstract art based on incoming signals from the Arecibo radiotelescope?

On the other hand, there’s a place for conceptual art and experimental philosophy, and it’s not necessarily in our backyard.

Any gardener knows that plants don’t need TV. 28

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The average tomato plant pumps out up to 60 pounds of tomatoes per growing season. The average cucumber vine produces up to 20 pounds of cukes. A single potato plant can generate ten pounds of potatoes; and a ten-foot row of cornstalks turns out 15 pounds of edible corn.

Our plants?

One tiny pumpkin seed can yield 100 pounds of pumpkin, plus maybe a thousand brandI’m pretty sure new pumpkin-producing pumpkin seeds.

I can speak One hill of zucchini produces amounts of for them. squash that can only be expressed in scientific notation. That’s not something you do with one hand tied behind your back. That takes work. That takes time, energy, dedication, and effort.

Of course I can’t speak for all those twitchy apartment-bound ficus plants. They may need plant TV. But I’m pretty sure I can speak for ours.

Our plants don’t need distractions. They’ve already got all they can handle.

They’re not bored.

They’re busy. ❖

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My Daughter, the Tortoise How a desert tortoise helped me with my little girl. By Brenda Rees ❖

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e’ve babysat kids and taken care of the neighbor’s cats enough that we don’t necessarily relish the opportunity. But when my friend Janna called one September evening to ask if we’d watch Rocky for a few weeks while she was out of town, my husband, Jim, and I didn’t hesitate. We said, “Yes!” Actually, Rocky had once been a contender for our permanent backyard pet, but once we realized he might live into his 100’s . . . well, we just couldn’t make the commitment. It was a shame, though, because Rocky is a desert tortoise, and desert tortoises are absolutely adorable, especially when they wag those chubby little tails.

Still, if we couldn’t be full-time parents, at He was a least we could be part-time tortoise sitters! wonderful, Before Rocky’s visit, I checked out a desert tortoise website and discovered to my small, living dismay that some of the plants in our Los dinosaur.

Angeles backyard—namely the agapanthus and scheffleras—were poisonous to tortoises. I mentioned this to Janna. “Oh, I don’t think he’ll be interested in them,” she replied nonchalantly.

Welllll, OK . . . I just didn’t want to find a stiff Rocky one morning when I went out to water the Mexican sage and the buddleia.

Still, Janna had raised Rocky and his six brothers 19 years ago from eggs. She was the source. I would trust her.

When Rocky arrived and we let him out of his carrying cage, he took off like a shot (relatively speaking). He snooped under tomato plants, crunched through plectranthus, dug around the 30

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jades. He was in heaven. Janna said, “The new environment should stimulate him. Maybe it will make him smarter.”

We picked out a shady place for a water bowl and food plate.

I asked Janna where Rocky would sleep. “He’ll find a spot,” she reassured me. “He’ll make a burrow somewhere safe.”

As I watched Rocky slowly and methodically troop about, I found myself grinning. It’s one thing to watch birds flitter back and forth, but a tortoise invokes meditation. Rocky forced me to slow down myself. He certainly was being stimulated. You could tell by the twinkle in his beady—and I do mean beady—little eyes.

Still, I worried about those poisonous I sat up plants. Rocky developed the nail-biting habit in bed. of burrowing down among the agapantus Katie was and scheffleras—the most toxic environment possible. Eeerk! Would one of those leaves Rocky. tempt him? Just how deadly were they? Every morning, once the sun warmed our Southern California grass, I gave a sigh of relief when I saw shuddering foliage spew out one pleased-looking reptile.

In order to keep Rocky’s mind off his bedding plants, I gave him daily treats of some irresistible tortoise foods—rose petals and hibiscus. As I walked my daughter home from her new kindergarten, we’d find bright red and yellow hibiscus blooms to (with permission) bring home. Katie’d squeal with delight when Rocky eagerly chomped the tasty buds right from her hands.

Katie loved showing off Rocky to her friends. She liked picking him up and putting him behind the jade and having him walk over her feet. He was a wonderful, small, living dinosaur.

But while our home front was magical, school was becoming worrisome. Katie was attending an inner-city kindergarten that served happy, well-cared-for kids along with a few troubled children from poor, broken homes. Sometimes I’d cringe when I walked by a classroom and heard some student acting destructively, crying for attention. Then some kindergarteners—kindergarteners!—in another classroom were suspended for obscenely and violently threatening a classmate. I felt as if the school were poison. It made 32

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me sick with worry.

But when my husband and I approached Katie with the idea of switching schools, she burst into tears. “I love my school! I love my friends! I love my teacher! I want to stay!”

That night I tossed and turned. How could I protect my daughter from the violence not only of her school, but also the world? It seemed as if she wanted to burrow right down among the poison . . .

I sat up in bed.

Katie was Rocky. She loved the freedom of kindergarten and relished in the joy of learning. Despite the few bad influences around her, she was determined to thrive and survive, just as Rocky did in our backyard.

Later that month when Janna came to pick Rocky up, she was thrilled to see a confident, spunky tortoise. Rocky’s hibernation would be coming soon, so we’d have to wait until spring to offer our tortoise-sitting service again. “I’m so glad I can count on you,” Janna told us as she carried Rocky into her car.

I was sad to see Rocky go, but thankful that he had reminded me about the nature of the world. We can’t hide from all the poison that’s out there, but we can make good decisions, find good friends, and keep our hearts in the right place.

Now when I send Katie off to school, I imagine her with an invisible shell of common sense and love that will keep her safe.

Maybe it won’t protect her from all the harmful things out there, but it will give her strength and courage to do what’s right.

Just like we fed Rocky rose petals and hibiscus, Jim and I strive to keep Katie well nourished spiritually and physically. Then it’s up to her to venture out in the warmth of the sun and chart her own course among the nooks and crannies, underbrush and shrubs, rocks and holes.

Let her be a tortoise, I tell myself. It’s a fine thing to be. ❖ 33

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The Amazing Adventures of: Orchid-Man -Man !

u th Yo et ra B ur n!® cG Yo de M ar ke G i “Orchid-Man; Orchid-Man; M y B Does whatever an orchid can!

Yes, his shoes look too tight Because he is an epiphyte; Look out! Here comes an Orchid-Man!”*

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During my 30 years of horticultural population control, my adventures have included setting trees on fire and planting ‘pumpkin seeds’ that filled the nearby forest with so many ghostly white birdhouse gourds that I had to write a note to a local teacher to get a neighbor’s kid (“Gourds are clearly tree fruits . . . ”) off a charge of horticultural madness (that domain is mine alone).

BUT, fearing their innate (and superior) treachery, I had always managed to dodge and weave my way around bonsai and orchids.

I once had a guest on my Public Radio show who cared for the bonsai that were exhibited The only every year at the Philadelphia Flower Show requirement for (I say ‘cared for’ because most of the people who had ‘grew’ those amazing trees had been one bonsai dead for a couple hundred years. There’s a society was that lesson there somewhere, and if I had a pick, a shovel, and strength of character, I might go you had killed a looking for it) and I shared that I had always hundred trees. been fascinated by the perfect little trees.

He asked, “Don’t you have any at home?” And I answered, maybe a little too quickly and honestly: “No; there are always too many guards in that section of The Flower Show,” then realized what he meant and said: “I mean, No—I’m terrified I’d kill one.” * Sung to the theme tune of the old Spiderman cartoon show.

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“I’ve killed HUNDREDS!” he shot back, adding that the only requirement for membership in one exclusive bonsai society was that you had killed a hundred trees. “Now there’s a goal I might be able to achieve!” I blurted.

That leaves orchids, which I was also successful at not doing until last February. I was appearing at a home show in the Washington, DC, area, and a couple who ran a local home and garden magazine had asked if they could take me out to dinner. Heck, yes; sure beats putting together my typical four courses out of the hotel vending machine and local liquor store. (“Which wine goes best with Doritos, TastyKakes, and Andy Capp hot fries?”)

They show up with a gift: one of the biggest, nicest orchids I had ever seen.

Maybe it’s silk, I thought hopefully. But noooooo—it’s a real 35

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Phalaenopsis, or moth orchid. So named, explains one of my books, “because the sequential flowers resemble a row of tropical moths in flight.” I had added in pencil, “heading to their doom on a tropical porchlight.” The book continues: “Their lives as houseplants are limited.” I guess that makes me the porchlight.

Except I’m not as bright as the average porchlight, and it’s February outside, so this poor plant may never live to see the dim light of my dining room. Its best hope is that I slip and fall on a patch of ice on the way to the car with it: same ending, less drama.

When I get back to the room after dinner (to get even with my hosts I had rack of lamb—for dessert), the orchid is already looking at me accusingly. I ask; “Ah; does poor little plantie have to go walkies?” (Might as well let it know what it’s in for for the rest of its pitifully short life.)

I fill the sink with water, take the inner pot out of its really cool Asian-style ceramic holder, sit the pot in the water for awhile, then let it drain. So far, so good; we’ve been in the same room for 40 minutes, and it’s still alive! I immediately go to bed so as not to change my luck.

The next day I do the home show, take it for a walk in the sink again, then go to bed at 7:00 p.m. to continue my streak. The next morning is checkout time, and when I take the last bag to the car, I realize the interior of said car is a toasty 20 degrees. So I turn it on, warm it up for five minutes, then turn it off and run back to the room . . . . . . where my card key doesn’t work anymore. I hear the plant crying on the other side of the door: “Daddy, it’s dark in here; I’m scared.” I start to answer that it’ll be even scarier when the plant is on the same side of the door as old fumble thumbs, and realize that not only am I hearing a plant talk to me, I’m answering it (in an eerily Norman Bates-like voice. What was the name of this motel again?). I go to the desk to learn that I was presumed to be dead or checked out. “Or both,” notes the clerk . . . . . . Who keeps his eyes locked on me as we travel to the room.

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He opens the door, and there’s an elderly three-foot-eighteen cleaning lady who looks like Norman’s mom and whose native language is generally only spoken on a world with six moons.

She is holding the orchid directly over the giant maw of her industrial-size cleaning cart trash bag. “Don’t startle her,” advises the clerk.

She is holding “You mean the old broad or the orchid?”

I respond in the voice of Groucho Marx. the orchid Then, always equipped for such matters, I directly over the take a deck of cards out of my pocket. “Take a card,” I tell the clerk. He does, and I put the giant maw of her rest of the deck away. “Keep it,” I tell him. industrial-sized “I’ve got 51 more.” trash bag.

Mrs. Bates stops just short of orchid-cide, and I reach onto her cart to take a plastic trash bag in which to wrap the orchid for its short walk to the car. She smacks me hard and then gives me a free little bar of soap, which I’m hoping has a hidden meaning and not the one I thought of first.

It’s a long drive home when you’ve had seven cups of coffee and the cost of a rest stop could be the life of an orchid. I spend the last hour driving like a crab, sideways, with my kidneys perched high in the air.

By the time I get home, I’m spitting to relieve pressure.

But the orchid and I both survive the trip, and I put it out on the dining room table in the dappled light I know it likes, and 37

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once a week I immerse the inner pot in water for 20 minutes and then let it drain completely like I know it likes. And despite the usual unequal sign that appears between my ‘knowledge’ and physical reality, it thrives, opening its big beautiful moths in sequence over the next six months. “When the last one falls off, we should torch the house,” I told my wife. “Then I can retire with a perfect record.”

Then comes the bonus round—tolerating what appears to be death but is actually (you hope) dormancy. About five months later a new flower spike appears. It’s not dead! Yet. I get seven flower buds on the new spike: four small, two mediums, and one huge thing I name Big Gulp. But then I come home one day to find all of the little buds face-down on the table.

This is more like it! Now I can ‘accidentally’ leave it outside. In the driveway. Behind the wheels of a car.

But maybe the bark chips just need to be replenished, I thought.

But when I take it out of the pot, I find that the chips have dissolved and are now soil. Not good for a plant that makes its living clinging to big trees with its naked scary white roots.

So I empty the pot and then realize I have no new bark. I look around and also realize that I have somehow lost the inner pot as well. I wind up sitting the bare-naked roots in the ceramic pot. I decide to just leave it be to Hasten the Inevitable. But I also dip the butt-nekid roots in water twice a week (to maybe get Purgatory instead of The Hot Seat). The medium buds fall off, leaving only Big Gulp. I wished I had a bottle of cognac to give it, but I drank the cognac when the first buds fell off.

Then instead of falling off, Big Gulp opens instead a stunning flower. I decide the lost six were Not My Fault, and now, in my own special world, I’m batting a thousand.

A month passes. Every day I come home and expect to see a little chalk outline on the table to indicate the position of the final body; but the flower is still up there! Another month passes. Then another. And so it stands to this day.

Next up? Bonsai, of course! I figure if I buy a hundred trees between now and Christmas, I’ll be the newest member of an exclusive society by the middle of January! ❖ 38

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Just living is not enough . . .

One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

—Hans Christian Andersen 39

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Repetitions Autumn comes back around. By Diana Wells ❖

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Right now, at the time of this writing, it’s a stinking-hot summer day in Pennsylvania, and your Editor has just called me to say we have to be thinking about the Autumn Issue of GREENPRINTS. Autumn?

What I want to write about is my new little granddaughter, born last January, six weeks earlier than expected, or—since I probably can’t get away with that—the new plant propagator I had bought for myself (it being my birthday) at about the same time.

Fall is often a time for planting, but there’s no way, my dear Editor and my dear co-gardeners, that I seem able to connect a plant propagator with your autumn interests.

Believe me, I tried. The bad thing is I’ve had Still, time has to scrap four pages. The better thing is that I can, indeed, write about it next spring—and passed in tie in my granddaughter, too! I bet you can’t my garden, wait. which has So, after Pat’s telephone call and the reluctant dismissal of such out-of-season changed as garden thoughts, I wiped my sweaty brow much as I have. and started thinking about autumn. I went to my collection of GREENPRINTS to check what, in the last 20 years, I had already chatted about in connection with autumn: leaves, bulbs, apples, blackberries, harvest, exhaustion, and several other topics (you can check if you collect back issues) seem to have been on my mind.

But that was then. Right now my mind doesn’t seem to be working too well. Perhaps it’s the heat, or my present love affair with—with my tomato seedlings! Perhaps it’s time to retire? But my garden doesn’t retire, or indicate that I should retire. I wonder then if anyone would notice if I repeated myself and recycled a few autumn thoughts? My husband certainly doesn’t seem to notice if 40

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I tell him, for the fourth time, that little Sophia can now hold her baby bottle by herself. (Sorry—I said I’d wait until spring!)

Retirement or not, I am getting older now, and repeating oneself is a privilege of the elderly—as it is of small children (ahem), dogs, the seasons, and gardens! They all, joyfully and unapologetically repeat themselves. And I, for one, never tire of the rhythm of their sweet repetition. Certainly, fall’s repetitions are beguiling. Cooler weather arrives. Trees begin to produce their brilliant hues. I get to tuck little bulbs into the earth. Tomatoes get piled on the counter, ready to be sauced. It’s all beginning or ending once again, de-

October

Murmuring with secret satisfaction the gardener finds in October empty spaces in his garden. Tut, tut, he says to himself, something must have died here. Let’s see, I must plant something in that empty spot; how about golden rod, or perhaps bugwort? I haven’t got it in my garden yet; astilbe would look well here; but for autumn Pyrethrum uliginosum would do, though in spring leopard’s bane would not be bad here either; well, I shall put a monarda here—either Sunset or Cambridge Scarlet; no doubt a day lily would look very nice here too. After that he wanders home in deep meditation, remembering on the way that morina is a nice little plant, not to mention coreopsis, and even betonica is not so bad; then in haste he orders from some nursery golden rod, bugwort, astilbe, Pyrethrum uliginosum, leopard’s bane, horse mint, day lily, morina, coreopsis, betonica, and still he writes down anchusa and salvia, and then he rages for some days because they do not arrive; at last the postman brings a crate full of them, and then he throws himself with his spade on that bald spot. With the first spit he forces out a mass of roots, on the top of which a whole clump of fat buds is clustered. God Almighty! moans the gardener, I’ve got trollius here!

To order The Gardener’s Year Year, see p. 6.

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JOSEF CAPEK

One (just one!) paragraph from The Gardener’s Year.

By Karel Capek

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pending on how you want to look at it. And it will happen again and again and again, every wonderful year.

In this joyful spirit, I’m repeating some reading—Karel Capek’s The Gardener’s Year. As always, every time I read him, everything he writes is as fresh as a new season. Do you remember the chapter on October, when he says, “the shifting of flowers is performed”?

I, too, shift plants in my borders in fall, specifically peonies.

Still, in the midst of these repetitions, time has passed in my garden, which has changed as much as I have. My mother-inlaw’s formal garden with its neat box hedges is gone now (I once wrote about that for you), and much has grown up. Tiny saplings that I brought home in my bicycle basket (rescued, not “stolen,” please) are now higher than the house and creating new shady spots. Some of the little shrubs I once planted are now larger than the peonies behind them. Like Karel Capek, I am busy carrying them around “like a cat her kittens” and looking for new places where they will flourish and not be obscured.

As we all know, peonies live longer than people. I’m hoping to find places where they’ll be permanently happy and visible, as my garden continues to mature over the years. I can’t, of course, predict exactly what will grow, and what won’t. So it’s likely that someone in the future may have to move them again.

Perhaps it will be my new granddaughter? I have to tell you there’s something about the way she holds that baby bottle that makes me suspect she may become a gardener. She also seems to plant her food around her, rather than throwing it, like ordinary babies. And she definitely smiled when we showed her a rose.

All right, I won’t go on about her. You’ll have to wait until spring, as I promised. Can you make it through fall (and, oh my goodness, winter) until we get there?

Surely so. After all, one thing a garden teaches us all is patience.

Every year it proves again the reliability of the seasons, the cycles of life as constant and fulfilling as ever.

So, not to worry, spring will come again, with the new growth of your (and my) garden—and my report on my grandchild.

I can’t wait, either. ❖ 43

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Grand Theft, Tree A fruitful crime story, with much variety.

By Patricia Starzyk ❖

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ll was not well in the town of Spitzenberg Spitzenberg. Under cover of darkness, a Northern Spy had slunk into town and made off with an experimental tree from the test gardens of Wealthy Apple grower Sir William Gravenstein.

The theft sorely offended William’s Pride,, not to mention his pocketbook.

“Honey,” he said the next morning to his assistant, Honey Crisp,, “that tree was going to be our ticket to fame and fortune—er, Crisp more fortune than we already have. We cannot let this crime go unpunished. We must find the thief and recover that tree or else our whole new Enterprise is doomed to failure.”

“As I see it,” said Honey as she twirled a few strands of Golden Russet hair around her finger, “there’s only one thing we can do.

We must call in Master Detective Granny Smith. She may be a bit doddery at times, but her mind is as sharp as a . . . as a . . . as a long-handled pruning Said Master saw! I’ll drive right over to her house and bring her back myself.”

Detective Honey brought her back to the GravenGranny Smith, stein estate within the hour. Granny Smith “This is clearly a extricated herself from the car. Step by slow job for my blood- step, she circled the scene of the crime. She bent over and inspected the ground with her hound Fuji.” magnifying glass. She rubbed the Pink Lady Cameo hanging around her neck. She muttered to herself while munching on one of Sir William’s apples. Honey and Sir William held their breath. Was the great detective stumped?

Of course she wasn’t. Straightening up and rubbing her stiff 44

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neck, she said, “This is clearly a job for my bloodhound Fuji Fuji. His nose is unrivalled in the country, maybe even in the world, and possibly in the universe.”

“So he can follow the scent of stolen apple trees?” Sir William asked.

“Not exactly,” Granny replied.

“He’s more like a connoisseur of freshly dug earth.

He gives it a good sniff every time he . . . well. I’m certain he’ll be able to find your tree, which undoubtedly left a trail of freshly dug earth from your estate.”

Granny pulled out a dog whistle and blew a few notes. Almost immediately, a goodsized bloodhound loped into view. He got right down to work.

He snuffled clockwise around the earth where the tree had been.

For good measure, he snuffled counterclockwise around it. Then, giving a Holmesian sort of bark, he galumphed north.

Granny, Honey, and Sir William leapt (or, in Granny’s case, crept) into Sir William’s Jeep. They bounced and jounced over the rutted country road, following Fuji’s lead.

“Ouch! They real-l-l-y should fix-x-x these pothole-l-l-l-les,” said Honey.

“Ag-g-r-r-r-e-e-ed,” said Granny. “A little Arkansas Black tar from the U.S. would smooth things out nicely. I shall speak to Councilor Ben Davis about it tomorrow.”

Sir William said nothing. With clenched jaw he drove, keeping 45

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his eyes on the road and the galloping bloodhound.

Mercifully for their bottoms and bones, they soon entered the town of Wolf River. Fuji trotted along for a few more blocks. Then he turned right on Baldwin Street and followed it to the edge of town. Once there, he charged down a long driveway, followed closely by the Jeep, until he came to the Villa Macoun Macoun,, the ancestral home of Count Cortland.

“I should have known,” said Sir William. “His family and mine have been rivals for generations.”

Springing out of the Jeep, he stormed up to the front door and hammered on it, crying, “Open up, you poltroon! Unhand my prize apple tree!”

The door inched open. Count Cortland stood on the doorsill rubbing his eyes and smoothing down his sinister mustache, as if he had only now awakened from a deep sleep. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Gravenstein, have you lost your mind?”

Sir William was undaunted—and unfooled. “Do you deny that you or one of your dastardly sycophants stole my new apple tree last night?” he thundered. “I think we’ll just take a look around with our earth-sniffing bloodhound.” He, Honey, Granny, and Fuji headed for the Cortland orchards.

“Ridiculous,” Count Cortland sputtered as he followed behind them. “Why, all my trees have been here for at least a year. If you don’t believe me, ask my gardener, Jonathan McIntosh.”

As if summoned by magic, McIntosh appeared. He nodded his wizened head, wrinkled as a dried apple. His eyes gleamed slyly. “That be right, sir. Bought ‘em and planted ‘em meself, I did, and no denying it.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Sir William. “Fuji, find my tree.”

Now, Cortland and McIntosh had been very clever. They had raked up the ground around each of their trees so that they all looked freshly planted. Furthermore, they had pruned each tree to roughly the same size and shape. It was impossible, so they thought, to tell which tree, if any, was Sir William’s.

And, indeed, at first Fuji seemed lost. The dogged bloodhound wandered aimlessly around the orchard, taking what looked like 46

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a random path among the trees.

Cortland and McIntosh exchanged smug smiles. The Count even managed to simper, “Told you so, Gravenstein.”

He had barely gotten out the “stein” when Fuji gave an Archimedean sort of bark and headed straight for a tree at the edge of the orchard. He marked it and then sat down to wait for the others to catch up, his doggy lips drawn up in his own version of the smug smile.

Sir William rushed up, patted Fuji, hugged the tree, and said, “My prize creation! Look, Sir William there’re my initials, right under your . . . er, hammered on signature, Fuji.”

Sure enough, Fuji, Honey, Granny, Cort- the door, crying, land, and McIntosh could see a faint ‘WG’ “Open up, written on the trunk in indelible ink. It was you poltroon! so faint you’d hardly notice it unless you Unhand my were looking for it, but it proved Sir William’s case. prize apple tree!”

“I’ll take this tree back home, thank you very much,” he said. “I won’t prosecute you this time, Cortland.

You’ll keep your Liberty Liberty, but I daresay your reputation will be ruined.”

Once home, Honey planted the tree back in its rightful place.

Sir William pounded two stout stakes into the ground and tied the prize securely to them.

“Delicious!” he exclaimed. “To celebrate our victory, I’ll throw a Gala. I’ll invite King Pinova and Queen Fameuse. But the real guests of honor will be Granny Smith and Fuji. We couldn’t have done it without you!”

Granny Smith blushed like a fall apple. “Pshaw,” she said.

“When I saw your tree and realized what rootstock you had used to produce it, I knew we would have found it one way or another.

It was inevitable.”

“Say?” Sir William said. “All I did was graft a standard Criterion onto an heirloom rootstock of Rome Beauty Beauty.”

“Yes, and that’s why we couldn’t have missed it,” said Granny.

“After all, all roads lead to Rome.” ❖ 47

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C U T T I N G S The 15-Minute Gardener When we first moved into our new home, I worked hard to fix up the gardens. I became Myrna—Super Gardening Woman! Wearing my superhero gardening gloves and wielding garden tools with extraordinary strength, I rescued failing bushes, tackled out-ofcontrol weeds, restored order to the unkempt gardens, and created a few more. (I had a little help from my sidekicks, Wonder Children Rose and Ryan, and Handsome Husband Owen.)

But then I got so busy freelance writing, driving the kids around, and participating in community activities that the only time I even saw my gardens was when I rode by them on the lawn tractor! I wanted to get back to gardening, but how?

The answer was that superhero mom tool—the kitchen timer. I use it almost daily, keeping track of Rose’s violin practice, monitoring minutes the kids spend watching TV, reminding me when to take something out of the oven, and more.

I decided to set it for 15 minutes a day—just for gardening.

Sure, I can’t do the big jobs in 15 minutes, but I can, indeed, get some deadheading, weeding, watering, or even a little planting done. But most often, I just wander around with clippers in hand. I watch the bees buzz the catmint. I twine clematis round a trellis. I sniff a red-orange rose blossom. I show Rose and Ryan the daylily.

I get to enjoy my garden.

—By Myrna CG Mibus of Webster, MN. 48

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Short selections—both old and new— sent in by our readers.

The Beauty of the Outdoors The land outside is beautiful.

The colors are pretty.

Leaves are starting to fall.

Animals are stocking up on food for the winter.

Now it’s time to rake leaves into piles jump into one or two, and make a splash of pretty colors.

The wind starts to howl.

The first frost is as beautiful as can be.

The first snow drifts down gently.

Lakes are frozen.

Time for some sledding and skating.

LINDA COOK DEVONA

Lakes are perfect for swimming during summer.

Fields are perfect for frolicking.

Find any tree and climb it.

Lay in the grass and feel the breeze.

We do not need electronics to have fun.

Jump in the mud. not too hot, not too cold, just right.

Play baseball or football.

Plant a garden, with potatoes, carrots, and some peas.

Go into the woods.

Watch some rabbits hop around.

Enjoy the beauty of the outdoors.

Look at the stars.

—By Alex Lahue, Gr Grade 5, Berkshire Elementary School, Richford, VT. 49

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Epidendrum A plant, a marriage, a divorce, a hope.

By Heather King ❖

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY SUSAN DRUCKER

just don’t have the touch with plants. I overwater—they turn yellow and rot. I underwater—they shrivel up and die. One day several years ago, my husband, Tim, and I were walking through the neighborhood when we spotted a Japanese woman tending a jungle of plants. One especially struck us. It had thick, spear-shaped leaves and blossoms in gorgeous colors of gold, purple, and Moroccan red.

The epidendrum “What do you call these?” Tim yelled looked weak through the fence. A half-hour’s worth of friendly conversation later, we were walking and withdrawn, home with a fistful of epidendrum cuttings. I as if it were stuck a few in potting soil, and, lo and behold, undergoing one of them took. Not only took, but eventuchemo. ally grew to a towering, health-radiating six feet. It was my one horticultural triumph, and every time I looked at it, it reminded me of everything that was best about Tim: his sense of fun, his openness, his talent for serendipity.

Two years ago, we separated. We’d agreed it was best to part ways, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. I tended the plants more absentmindedly than ever: watering the browning bromeliads, killing off orchids. Did I have a black thumb when it came to relationships, too? The day Tim moved back east, I cut the epidendrum back so far it almost died: It looked weak and withdrawn, as if undergoing chemo.

In between, I made treks to the downtown courthouse, sitting for hours in the California do-it-yourself divorce clinic, standing 51

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in line at the filing window, a 14-year relationship reduced to a few bloodless, boilerplate forms. “Date of marriage: 5-12-96” would bring me back to the spring day we’d eloped to Nantucket and made our vows before a chain-smoking Justice of the Peace.

“Declaration Regarding Minor Children: There are no minor children” would evoke how Maybe it wasn’t we’d almost decided to become parents, but some shared failure of nerve had held us the end. Maybe back. Basis of petitioner’s request: Irreconcilit was the able differences,” I’d read, and think of how, beginning of even when the air was thick with anger and confusion, we’d still made it a point to eat another kind dinner together every night. of relationship, One afternoon just before Thanksgiving, one we were still the final papers arrived. “You are notified that the following judgment was entered on feeling out.

November 25, 2009: Dissolution of marriage.”

I cried a little, then I called Tim, back in New Hampshire. “Is there an ex-husband in the house?” I said when he answered.

“No!” he replied. “It came through?”

He told me about his ailing father. I read him a recipe for romesco sauce.

“What happened to us, honey?” I asked as we signed off.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we’ll never know. Still love you, though.”

“Love you, too. Keep me posted on your father . . . . ” e hung up, and I looked out the window, thinking, “How can you sleep beside someone every night for all those years and then have it end?” Maybe it wasn’t the end, I tried to comfort myself. Maybe it was the beginning of another kind of relationship, one we were still feeling out.

Gazing over the courtyard, my eyes stopped short at the epidendrum. After months of neglect, it was thriving—the leaves lustrous, the grown-in stalks hardy. And way at the top were two blood-red blooms: nodding their young heads, their necks intertwined. ❖ 52

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My Shoulda-Been-a-Prize Pumpkin

By Sherry Denecker Denecker

SHERRY IS A WRITER AT HELIUM.COM.

It all started with my brilliant idea to raise a prize-winning pump-

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARILYNNE ROACH

kin . . . in the greenhouse! That way I could avoid the wind, grasshoppers, and javelina that had ruined my past attempts and finally win the prize at the Arizona State Fair.

I had read every guide and come up with the perfect combination of water and fertilizer. I pinched off all the blossoms except the very best one. I watched, watered, and waited as my little orange treasure grew.

Each day it seemed to double in size. The warm summer days and protection of the greenhouse worked wonders: By harvest time it was monstrous—surely a prize-winning size! I basked in my success. It was one of the best moments of my life.

Until I realized that I had made one monstrous mistake: My pride and joy was too big to fit through the greenhouse door!

There would be no prize at the State Fair now. Heck, I couldn’t even prove that my giant pumpkin existed.

Bah squashbug! Next year I’m growing radishes.

What’s your worst gardening mistake? Send it to GREENPRINTS, Broken Trowel Award, P.O. Box 1355, Fairview, NC 28730. If we print it, you’ll get a free one-year subscription and our GREENPRINTS Companion CD! 53

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Oscar the Doofus A dog grows a gardener. By Joyce Carpenter ❖

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veryone has moments of temporary insanity. One of mine was when I agreed to get our daughter Sarah a dog.

In my defense, Sarah is the kind of kid who makes you long to buy her a pet. She loves animals almost as much as I love plants. From the moment she could toddle, a parade of critters followed her everywhere she went. We watched our normally aloof cats in disbelief. They wouldn’t even come when we called, but they followed her in single file all over the house.

As she grew, they shared our home with frogs, lizards, hamsters, and even caterpillars.

But enough was never enough, and Sarah begged and begged for a dog. My husband, Poodles are Greg, showed a great deal of sense by opposing the idea. I, on the other hand, took leave supposed to of my senses and embraced it. be smart. I So Oscar joined us, about eight years ago. have African He was a fluffy puppy, as cute as can be, with big mustaches on either side of his mouth. My violets with first thought was that he looked a little like higher IQ’s.

Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple. I proposed we name the dog Oscar, and it stuck.

It was soon apparent that the whole idea left a lot to be desired.

Our daughter was bordering on adolescence by the time we got Oscar, and caring for a dog soon took a back seat to hanging out with her friends. Before long, Sarah would be off to college and the mutt would be all ours.

We had selected a toy poodle because they’re supposed to be smart, according to the dog book. We thought that would make it easier for two dog novices to train him. Poodles are also supposed 54

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to be odor-free. Unfortunately, Oscar didn’t get that far in the dog book, so he didn’t know either one of those things. He smelled like dirty socks—no matter how much we bathed him. It took him nearly eight years to remember that he wasn’t supposed to piddle in the house. I have African violets with higher IQ’s.

If you think poodles are classy, you’ve never met Oscar. He snorted and spilled food when he ate, slopped water all over the floor when he drank, and snored like a 300-pound man when he slept. He was as big a slob as his namesake.

To make matters worse, he had a terrible aversion to haircuts.

The groomer refused to touch him unless he was sedated. We didn’t think that that was such a great idea, so we took to grooming him ourselves. If we ever decide to make a living as dog groomers, we’ll have to live in a cardboard box and beg for food. The dog was a pitiful sight, with one leg thicker than the other three and strands of fur obscuring his eyes. His back and sides looked like a cheap rug, with bald spots where we’d had to cut out whatever mess he’d gotten into. Our cats hurled up fur balls that were better looking than Oscar.

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He didn’t get a warm welcome from us at first. I swore at him as I cleaned up his messes. Greg made fun of his lack of intelligence and even made up a little song about it (to the tune of Frosty the Snowman): Oscar the doofus is a very stupid dog With too much fur and not enough tail And the brainpower of a log.

Oscar the doofus piddles indoors every day, With a brain like a sieve, he’s too dumb to live But he does it, anyway!

You might think a man who constantly made fun of his dog didn’t care for him, but you would be wrong. The truth is that Greg—the guy who was dead set against getting a dog—was falling in love. Soon Greg and his pooch were nearly inseparable.

The atmosphere in our home grew tense. Oscar and Greg gazed into each other’s eyes adoringly. I threatened to haul them both to the pound.

But then everything changed. We moved across the country to a charming old house with a yard that needs some help, and Oscar is finally out of the doghouse (so to speak). Maybe it’s the fact that he’s figured out—at last!—that the bathroom is outside and not on my kitchen floor. But maybe it’s because he’s turned out to be such a great garden companion.

I have to take the dog out while Greg is at work, but I’ve stopped resenting the chore now that warm weather has arrived.

Here I am with several new gardens to design, and every time I take Oscar out, I come up with a new idea.

He also gives me someone to talk to. “What do you think, Oscar?” I say. “Do you think the astilbes will grow under the holly tree? And don’t you think we ought to add some daffodils under the crape myrtle?” No matter what I ask him, I get a dumb look in reply. He can’t help it; it’s the only look he has. But he doesn’t have to belong to Mensa to be good company. I love how he follows me around and watches everything I do. I already knew my 56

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garden was important, but it’s nice to know he thinks so, too.

In spite of his sloppy personal habits, I’d swear Oscar has a great eye for design. He always seems to linger around my best displays and turn away in disgust from the failures. He sits and watches patiently as I plant, woofing his encouragement every now and then. He even helps me scatter seeds occasionally, although I’m not sure that part is intentional. He may not be the brightest petunia in the flowerbed, but he seems to know that the garden is special, and he never digs or relieves himself where I’ve planted.

We spend happy hours poking around in the dirt. When the sun gets strong, he dozes off, snoring loudly as I work.

But what’s really endeared him to me is the way he’s gotten Greg to take an interest in gardening. For many years, I tried in vain to accomplish this, but Oscar managed to do it in just a few months.

It started with Greg wandering out into the yard this spring, trying to locate his missing buddy. When he saw that Oscar liked being in the garden, he decided he liked it, too. Soon he was asking me questions. “What’s that thing with the fuzzy pink flowers?”

“Why are you planting those bulbs so deep?” “How long will it take this one to bloom?”

Greg still can’t keep the names of anything straight. He thinks the nemesias are “amnesias” and the columbines are “combines.”

And when I point to the forget-me-nots and ask him what they are, he says—honest—“I forget.” But he knows a lot more than he did before. Sometimes he even comes home from the grocery store with a six-pack of annuals instead of beer. I’m hoping that one day Greg will be a real gardener. If so, it will be the dog who deserves the credit.

That day may have arrived sooner than I thought. Last night I looked out the family room window and saw something I thought I’d never see. There was my beloved, on his knees in the garden with a trowel in one hand and a packet of seeds in the other! His buddy sat by his side and watched. I giggled as he held up the seed packet to Oscar, pointed at it, and explained its contents. Then, to my disbelief, he began to read all of the instructions to the dog.

Oscar, as usual, gave him a dumb look. ❖ 57

Autumn, 2O1O

No. 42

THE GREENPRINTS LETTER Behind the Scenes of Your “Weeder’s Digest” Magazine

Summer with the Stones

Big News One: One Nate’s fiancée graduated from Berkeley Law School (winning two prizes along the way!). All but Sammy somehow got out to California to celebrate. L to R: Becky, Pat, Atteeyah, Nate, Tucker, Adam, & Jesse.

Big News Two: Becky had a second knee replacement (the first one was two years ago). This went much better than the last; still, she was laid up for over a month. Tucker was home and a big help to Nurse Dad. And Nate (who’s moved back east—yay!—to —yay!—to Atlanta) Atlanta came up when he could.

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Clockwise from Top Left: Left The physical therapist had Becky walking one day after surgery! . . . Her first outing was to watch me test out Bluebird, the new minicanoe-of-my-dreams, in a neighbor’s swimming pool . . . Jesse and hubby Adam spent two weeks in a cabin they helped build—in Alaska! (I guess living in Arizona isn’t out west enough for them!) . . . On a presurgery visit, Sammy and beau, Roger, went paddling on (and swimming in) Georgia’s legendary Chattooga River with Dad.

Above: I finally traded my nursemaid cap for a helmet and took the ’Bird out for a flight. Conclusion? It’s the Z3 of canoes—most canoes— fun boat ever!

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight Well, he did. But I woke him up!

By Glen Headland ”La de da da, dee da dee da da, The lion sleeps tonight . . . ” ou know what it’s like when you get an irritating tune stuck in your head. It rattles round like the last toffee in the tin and haunts you all day. But I can’t help it. These days the simple act of looking at my husband brings on a protracted bout of humming “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Every time, without fail. A mere glance will do it. And, funny thing, when he hears it, he glares at me—briefly—then looks away. I can tell he wants to roar.

What instigated such dissonance in the matrimonial melody?

I blame the lion’s head fountain that gushes water into our beautiful garden pond. Every evening, as soon as the sun goes down, we light it up from a spotlight just below the water line so that the ripples on the surface of the water are reflected on the wall behind the lion and “Then you try form a regal mane around his head.

When Hubby first finished building the to forget you pond, this flickering mane filled the entire ever built a wall, the lion’s green glass eyes danced with pond in the mischief, and the water roared from his first place, while mouth in a mighty torrent. But after a few weeks, the lion threw a wobbly, his torrent your wife . . . .” wasn’t, and it looked like he’d been attacked by an apprentice hairdresser.

I mentioned this to He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, in passing, over breakfast one morning. He didn’t respond but continued flicking through the London Times as though I didn’t exist. I broached the 60

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY DENA SEIFERLING

subject again. That got an instant response—the kind that tells you to reach for the passport and emigration papers. Perplexed, I let the subject drop.

A few days later, I was sipping my evening tipple out by the pond when I found myself face to face with a row of knobs I’d not seen before. Of course I twiddled them. That’s what knobs are for. The first knob didn’t seem to do anything, so I twiddled knob number two. The lion stopped dribbling altogether, and his haircut completely disappeared. “Oooh,” I thought, “that’s interesting.”

Unable to resist, I twiddled again, and the lion burped, spluttered, and then stopped again. Intrigued, I twiddled a bit more. There was a mighty grinding noise, then the lion gushed as freely as the 61

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day he was installed. He grew in stature, his green eyes flashed and his mane flowed all over the wall. My veins were filled with that warm glow of satisfaction that comes with success. Or it could have been the claret. But it doesn’t really matter because everyone was happy.

Whoops—not everyone. My husband strolled over to top off my glass, stopped mid-pour, stared at the lion, and left my welldeserved refill hanging in mid-air.

“What have you done?” he asked, so I told him. He started mumbling, “Fifteen years, eighteen pounds fifty, mutter, mutter, mutter,” and stomped off indoors. Even by my standards, this was odd. It made me anxious, and when I’m anxious, I’m inclined to sing. I instinctively started to hum “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” to calm myself.

For two days, he was quiet. Then we had friends round. They took one look at the lion’s mane and said, “Wow! That’s amazing!

How’d you do that?”

“Nothing to it,” said Hubby in a rather strained voice. “You’ve just got to be an engineer for fifteen years. Then you’ve got to buy a garden centre and study pumps and filter systems for another fifteen years. Then when you build your own pond, you have to apply all that expertise by choosing and installing the finest equipment. Then you scream when it doesn’t work, thump the pump against the side of the pond and break it, spend eighteen pounds fifty on spare parts, and feel a complete failure when you realize that, expertise notwithstanding, you are still confronted with a pump that won’t pump and a mere lion cub.”

He stood up, paced towards the pond, and went on with false gaiety, “THEN you try to forget you ever built a pond in the first place, while your WIFE, who knows nothing about such things, idly twiddles knobs with reckless disregard for anyone’s safety.

Only then, my dear friends, will the pump pump and the lion roar.”

He sat down with a thud, finishing lamely, “Simple, really.”

Our friends left shortly afterwards. I gazed at hubby. He smiled, thinly. I turned the pond light off. Then I turned the pump off. The lion went to sleep. So did we.

I tried not to hum. ❖ 62

BUDS

HEATHER GRAHAM

Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps a singing bird will come. —Chinese Proverb 63

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The PlantIt Kids

t was seven years ago, early spring. My youngest son, Dustin, and his sixth-grade neighborhood friends here in Portland were at that awkward age when boys and girls like to taunt each other rather than admit their growing interest. I was sure the summer ahead would be fraught with increasing boy/girl tension unless they had a common goal.

“You know how you like buying hats and baking cookies and wrapping them all up and playing Santa for the people living under bridges at Christmas?” I asked Dusty.

“Yeah,” he said.

“What if, this summer, you and your friends make a garden in our yard and grow vegetables for a local soup kitchen?”

He looked at me as if I’d just sprouted horns. “I don’t know how to grow vegetables.

“How about if Neither do you.” this summer you “We can learn,” I said. “And if you get and your friends your friends to help, it’ll be easy.”

“Who’d want to do that?” grow vegetables “It’d be a project you could all work on for a local soup together.”

“Who needs a project? It’s summer vacakitchen?” tion, Mom.” “Tell you what. If you guys do it, we can have barbecues every Friday night, and you can play flashlight tag afterwards.”

“Really? Every Friday?”

“You all come up with a name for the project, figure out what you’ll grow, and plan where.” As a final incentive, I told him about a grant they could apply for to build the garden. His older 64

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Of cancer and children, hunger and hope.

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brother had once gotten his own project grant. I knew having a grant would make Dusty’s project as important in his eyes as his brother’s.

So he invited his friends over to hear the idea. They loved it, and things quickly sprouted into action. One boy, though, wondered about the idea of having a garden for a soup kitchen: “Soup doesn’t grow in a garden. This doesn’t make sense.”

The other kids never let him live that one down.

The eight youths named themselves the PlantIt Kids and decided what they’d plant and where they’d donate produce. They agreed to apply for a community grant but were doubtful anybody would give money to kids.

“My brother got a grant. He’s a kid,” Dusty pointed out.

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backyard. Within two weeks, they got news that they’d received a grant. They’d already yanked weeds and bought some starter plants. Now they ordered lumber, built the beds, and filled them with high-grade soil. They devised a watering system, erected a bean teepee, and had their first barbecue. It was an amazing transformation—a time to celebrate. hen catastrophe struck. One Sunday, after Dusty ran a five-mile marathon and played two soccer games, he plopped down beside me on the couch. “Look,” he said.

“I have a lump on my leg.”

I didn’t doubt he’d be banged up. Dusty always played hard.

“Where?”

“On my knee.”

“Let me see.”

He guided my hand to an area above his knee that had been sensitive for some time. Now a lump protruded from the spot.

Within 12 hours, he was x-rayed and referred to a specialist. The next two weeks were a barrage of tests. Each test ruled out good news, bringing us closer and closer to the inevitable, terrible prognosis: Dusty had a malignant tumor.

Terror gripped me. I feared my child would lose his leg or, worse, his life. He might need chemotherapy—the doctors would have to make him horribly ill and take him to the brink of death to save him.

I tried to keep my fears from my son. The doctor said there was no reason he couldn’t play soccer with his team in the state tournament. I watched him run down the playing field and chided myself for all the times I had complained about watching games in inclement weather and all those rides to practice. Memories of looking out the kitchen window and watching him race our collie across the field next to us, his blond hair flying out behind him, were gut-wrenching. Would I ever see him so carefree again?

Dusty and his friends all but forgot the garden. When I remembered, I’d turn on the water and pull a few weeds, not caring—or even much noticing—if the water drenched me. One evening I 66

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bent over to pull up what looked like a small weed, but the more I pulled, the more roots uncoiled from the soil.

The doctor’s words came back to me. “We won’t know how invasive the tumor is until we operate. Tumors can have tentacles.”

I dropped the weed and wept.

After that, I avoided the garden and the dark truths it held. I even washed dishes after dark so I’d have to look out the window at it—and the weeds it held—less often.

The doctor scheduled surgery for the day after school broke for summer vacation.

Dusty plopped Until surgery, we wouldn’t know the extent down on the of the cancer. But we did know Dusty would couch. “Look,” be on crutches all summer. He would lose a large part of one of his quadriceps, and the he said. “I have surgeon (known as the limb salvager, I later a lump on learned) would have to shave Dusty’s femur my leg.” to a paper-clip thinness to make sure all cancer cells were removed.

The day Dusty went into surgery was excruciating. Dusty had cried only once throughout all the tests—right before he went in for a biopsy—but as he waited to be wheeled into surgery—tears poured down his pale face. I was helpless to make anything better.

After the longest hours of my life, the operation was over.

The doctor, tired and sweaty, announced that he believed he had removed the entire tumor. But my excitement faded quickly when the nurse wheeled Dusty’s stretcher into the hallway.

I barely recognized my child. His skin was gray. He opened his eyes, but they didn’t focus. He tried to speak, but only an unrecognizable slur of sounds came out. His breathing was shallow.

His eyelids soon closed back over glazed eyes.

Next to him on the stretcher, a jar held his tumor—an ugly, gray mass about the size of a small potato. Spidery tentacles swooshed back and forth in the liquid. I had to look away.

The next week passed in a blur. Pain medicine eased Dusty’s discomfort, but it also kept him from being his normal buoyant 67

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self. His leg was connected to a machine that kept it moving 24 hours a day.

Dusty came home after a ten-day stay in the hospital. Before we left, the doctor said, “I’m pretty confident we got it all. But for the next five years, we’ll have to keep a close eye on things. There will be regular x-rays and MRIs.” When we stepped out of the hospital and into the hot, fresh air, Dusty whooped. “Can I go swimming?” he asked.

“Not with those bandages, you goofball.”

“I can always get more.”

We both tried to be upbeat, but neither of us fooled the other with our false cheer. There would be no swimming, no baseball, no soccer, no flashlight tag. Instead, there’d be pain, intensive physical therapy, and long hours to wonder what might come next. ust as we pulled into the driveway, our silence was shattered by laughter and shouts of “Surprise!” Dusty’s friends jumped out from behind the garage. Before I could help my son out of the car, his PlantIt Kids friends surrounded him. Careful of his bandaged leg, they eagerly led him to the backyard.

“Look! The tomatoes are almost two feet tall!”

“The zucchini plants have blooms bigger than baseballs!”

Dusty’s friends pointed out the first blossoms on the peppers.

They examined the beanstalks growing up the teepee and placed bets on which would reach the top first.

One of the boys snuck away to turn on the sprinklers and catch everyone by surprise. Our dog joined in the excitement and ran wildly through the garden.

“Get him out!” a girl shrieked. “He’ll kill the peppers!”

Dusty’s joy was palpable. I shared his delight, but it was not the beanstalks or zucchini blossoms that amazed me—it was the absence of weeds. The kids had pulled every one. For the first time, I knew that Dusty, like the garden, would survive. The world had turned from bleak to promising, the children’s thoughtfulness proof that life had goodness and beauty after all.

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threw weeds at each other, soaked each other while watering, and bit into juicy tomatoes straight from the vine. My son joined them, first leaning on both crutches, then on one, and finally hobbling around on his own. His friends never catered to him, never showed pity or sorrow. Instead, they took turns trying out his crutches and racing him to the picnic table.

As the vegetables grew, Dusty gained strength.

He worked hard during physical therapy sessions and had 100% mobility back a month ahead of what the doctors expected.

Tests proved the surgery had gotten rid of all cancer cells. The doctors were very optimistic about the future.

As their produce ripened, the PlantIt Kids took baskets full of fresh vegetables to Sisters of the Road Café, a local nonprofit that offers meals to the homeless. It was such a positive experience for them that they had a garden for the next four years. During the third year, they even prepared a harvest luncheon called Stone Salad Barbecue for over 400 homeless people. ll those young people have now scattered across the country to go to college or work. They’re making their way in the world, not just our backyard. Last summer I planted lavender instead of vegetables. When my son came to visit recently, I asked him to help me pull weeds.

Even the ones with tentacles. ❖ 69

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Five Prose Poems Dispatches from the garden.

By Charles Goodrich A long-time professional gardener, Charles Goodrich recently authored Going to Seed: Dispatches From the Garden, a collection of 52 prose poems centered on moments in his garden. “Winsome and precise,” said one reviewer. “Exquisitely drawn,” said another. “Sometimes startling.

Always engaging. Nothing like them anywhere,” wrote a third.

I found them captivating: wonderful snapshots of garden thought.

The book is divided into five sections, based on the seasons. I’d like to close this issue by sharing one piece from each.

I. Summer

he big garter snake basking beside my wheelbarrow is an old acquaintance—I recognize it by the nasty scar on its side. Its sleek body has a bulge halfway back, the yellow pin-stripe broken by a dark lump with no scales.

I gave it that wound. Harvesting spuds last summer, I turned up a forkful of new potatoes and one writhing snake. I’d nicked it with a tine of the spading fork.

It looks peaceful enough sleeping in the sun, but I’ll bet that wound still aches. Of all the garter snakes that live in our yard, this is the only one I know on sight. I wish it weren’t so, but I never forget the creatures I have hurt.

Reprinted from Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden, Garden by Charles Goodrich, © Silverfish Review Press, 2010. To order, see p. 6.

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II. Fall

Music to Garden By obby’s playing his squeeze box on the porch next door. Somebody farther off is mangling blues chords on a badly tuned electric guitar.

I’m pulling up overgrown carrots and beets, grunting and sighing—that old animal music—sometimes humming along with Bobby’s Irish ditties, sometimes with those hapless blues.

And sometimes I just pause, sit back on my haunches and listen to the breeze sawing at the leaves of the apple tree, the wingbeats of the chickadees hurtling past me, or the steady hum of the earthworms eating the ground beneath my feet.

III. Winter

Going to Seed anuary evenings, I sit by the fire, salivating over the latest fashion magazines—Burpee’s, Wayside Gardens, Johnny’s Selected Seeds— dreaming that I’m still a young stud, still up for double-digging a new bed, getting it on with the latest hybrids.

Once I was biodynamic. I used to do a lot of heavy mulching. I tried my hand at companion plantings, played around with French intensive.

There was a time I’d dibble seed into any dirt I came across.

But I’m done sowing wild oats. I’m not planning to graft a branch on some other guy’s tree. Anyway, who cares who can raise the biggest zucchini. I’m happy just looking at the pictures.

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IV. Spring

Lettuce nto each cell of the egg carton I tamp an egg’s-worth of soil, then press into each seed-bed three seeds. I spritz them with tapwater, and place the carton on the windowsill above the kitchen sink.

A week later, the seedlings have arisen, every one. Twelve groves of tiny plants, each sprout just a pair of seed-leaves on a slender pinkish stem, succulent and alert.

But now I hesitate. If I really want full heads of lettuce, I have to thin these plants, have to pick up the scissors and kill two of each three. In the everlasting tussle between spirit and matter, no one knows when his time is up. I feel the blade at my own neck.

V. Summer Again

Wild Geese m m picking bbeans eans when the geese fly over, Blue Lake pole beans I figure to blanch and freeze. Maybe pickle some dilly beans. And there will be more beans to give to the neighbors, forcibly if necessary.

The geese come over so low I can hear their wings creak, can see their tail feathers making fine adjustments. They slip-stream along so gracefully, riding on each other’s wind, surfing the sky. Maybe after the harvest I’ll head south. Somebody told me Puerto Vallarta is nice.

I’d be happy with a cheap room. Rice and beans at every meal. Swim a little, lay on the beach.

Who are you kidding, Charles? You don’t like to leave home in the winter. Spring, fall, or summer either. True. But I do love to watch those wild geese fly over, feel these impertinent desires glide through me.

Then get back to work.

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