A Garden Grows in Corning

(5) Courtesy Jennifer Tiffany

Pixie Moss Meadows Celebrates Garden Whimsy in Small Packages

By Karey Solomon

While many people might look sadly at a defunct portable radio, or wonder what to serve in an over-large teacup, Jennifer Tiffany sees these and more as intriguing containers for small, whimsical gardens. She specializes in succulents, a species of plants with a lot of variety in color, texture, and leaf size. Paired with interesting ceramic accents, stones, seashells, and almost always with a pixie, fairy, or gnome—or, alternatively, a baby Yoda—Jennifer’s mini-gardens are each their own small world, a desktop retreat with a story to tell.

Pixie Moss Meadows, at 65 East Market Street, Corning, is where the magic happens. Opened this year, it’s a green oasis complete with the gentle sounds of a tall, trickling fountain, rows and rows of happy plants, and baskets of the colorful semi-precious stones she uses to decorate her scenes.

“I can create a garden in just about anything,” Jennifer says. “I’ve even used hollowed out logs.” And shoes, antique orphan drawers, ceramic skulls. She even creates such tiny gardens, nestled in containers like antique canning jars, that she has to use tweezers to carefully maneuver everything into place.

Here in the store are also garden accessories she’s spent time researching and sourcing, like quirky spoon plant picks with sayings like, “I wet my plants,” and “Grow, damn it!” For those who feel uncertain about their gardening skills, there are little wooden stakes to stick in your plants that say things like “A little thirsty over here!” as a reminder to people who forget to water, or “My next victim,” for those who refuse to be reminded.

The shop’s name, and the presence of small, magical creatures ornamenting most gardens is reminiscent of the stories Jennifer’s grandmother told her on childhood walks. “She told me to keep my eyes out for pixies and gnomes,” she says now. She remembered her grandmother when she chose the name for her business.

“I needed a mystical name—I believe the pixies gave it to me!” she says.

Jennifer’s impetus for Pixie Moss Meadows began as a stay-at-home mom wanting a creative outlet. Friends and family who saw her creations asked her to make little gardens for them as well. “I loved succulents because they were the first sort of plant I didn’t kill,” she laughs. She took online classes and spent years sourcing accessories. She propagates her succulents in

order to have a good supply, experimenting with ones that trail, some that look like little trees, others looking like green flowers growing directly from the soil. Succulents come in a range of different greens as well as variegated colors. They store water in their leaves and stems, which can make their leaves plump and substantial, as well as more drought-tolerant. Some are cold hardy and live permanently outdoors, others are more at home inside. Several might be already living in your home—think aloe vera, jade, and the long-leafed mother-in-law’s tongue. If they’re not in your home and you want them, Jennifer can probably get them for you.

She also carries a variety of cacti as well as houseplants grown by HPP Houseplants in Rochester. “Everything is in beautiful pottery in her own soil mix so they’re really thriving,” she says. Among other regional vendors are herbal creations by Bespoke Apothecary, handmade soaps by LizAnn Body Delights, intuitively created bracelets by Tiger Lilly, and insect shadowboxes by the Garden Spider. On a larger scale, look for chainsaw-carved mushrooms and gnomes for garden hardscaping.

There’s a display of air plants and a bower of Spanish moss, another frequent ingredient in her gardens. “Did you know moss is supposed to represent good luck and abundance?” she asks. She has tiny moss gardens floating in jars; some of the balls of moss even wear little sun hats to protect them from light, as they prefer dim spaces.

One of the ultimate low-maintenance choices is the aquatic terrarium, a creation she describes as “a little ecosystem with beta fish.” The fish nourish the plants, she explains, and the plants filter the fishbowl, “so you hardly ever have to change the water.”

Among the gardens she creates are ones for encouragement, thank-you gifts, and get-well gardens. “I’m sending lots of love, luck, and healing in every get-well garden I create,” she says. She’s happy to craft custom orders for any holidays or occasion. Among the magical accessories are ceramic mushrooms, fairy doors, fairy houses, and miniature gnomes created by MacKenzie, a clay artist who is also Jennifer’s teenage daughter. She always uses her own soil mix, one she created after a lot of experimentation.

“Dirt is really important,” she says. “I want the gardens to thrive and have a long life.”

One of the nicest surprises in opening her store was the success of her garden bar, a work bench supplied with all the plants, interesting containers, soil, and accessories needed for customers who want to create their own tabletop garden. Like her plants, this concept grew, so she’s added a second garden bar. Private “garden parties” are generally held on Sundays. Participants can bring their own refreshments, and up to fifteen can be accommodated at a time. The shop gets redecorated and accessories augmented for each seasonal holiday. Repeat customers and smiling faces make it worthwhile, she says.

“Everyone has such a different imagination! It’s so cool! I love to see everyone’s creations, it’s wonderful,” she says enthusiastically. “I feel very blessed to be here.”

Learn more at pixiemossmeadows.com, on Facebook, or call (607) 221-5906.

Karey Solomon is a freelance writer and needlework designer who teaches internationally.

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Natural teachers: “Mountain Souls” is one of the original drawings by Michael Pilato included in the film to enhance the narrative.

Documenting Mountain Souls

A Tribute to the Remarkable Lives of Bob and Dotty Webber

By Linda Roller

“In your life, there are a few people you meet that are icons. Bob and Dotty are those people in my life. I learned so much from them.” So says Jeff Swingholm, and the immense respect and love he had for Dotty and Bob Webber is immediately evident through the documentary he has produced on their lives. Released in summer 2021, there will be a showing of Mountain Souls in Wellsboro at the Coolidge Theater in the Deane Center on Saturday, October 16, at 7 p.m.

The idea for the documentary grew out of a decades-long friendship with Jack Duerer and the Webbers. Jack brought Jeff up to the cabin when Jeff was sixteen. As so many people did, Jeff took to Bob and Dotty immediately.

“When Dotty passed (in 2012) and then Bob (in 2015), I was shocked that no one had written a book about them or had ever done a documentary,” Jack says.

But soon after Bob’s death, the focus for people who knew and loved the Webbers was to save their cabin for future generations. Jeff’s longtime friend Jack was central to that project and in 2016 worked with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to dismantle the cabin and store it for safekeeping. It was Christmas of that year that Bob Webber’s son, Buddy, gave Jack a DVD of the dismantling project, set to the music of one of Jack’s favorite artists, John Denver. Jack, in turn, gave Jeff a copy. “I was touched,” he says. “I showed it to my wife, and she had a lot of questions about Bob and Dotty.” Her questions spurred him to create a documentary about the Webber’s lives.

It was a perfect project for a man who was a video producer. Jeff had the skills and knew people who could help him with the project. People like Mark Polonia, who has been a filmmaker and editor for over thirty years.

“He’s a great editor,” Jeff says. “Mark and I have worked on a few things before.” Jeff also reached out to Linda Sampson, who used to write for him. “In thinking

about the documentary, most of the script would be the interviews. But it would also need narration. Linda was the perfect person to help me write that.”

Several of Bob’s long-time friends had been filmed for the documentary, and John Eastlake proved to be an important source of photos, as he and Bob had blazed many of the trails in the area together. But for some of the Bob and Dotty stories there were no photos. Then Jeff had a flash of inspiration that added another dimension to the film, recalling that, “I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea of drawings depicting Bob and Dotty and events in their lives.” Charlie Schwarz, Bob Webber’s boss for many years, had told Jeff about the mural in Williamsport showing Bob with a book in his hand. Jeff had seen the mural and knew that Michael Pilato was the artist. “I asked Michael if he knew anyone who could do the sketches needed for the documentary, and he said that he could do them.” It was only after the work was completed that Michael told Jeff he had not done that type of work for about twenty-five years.

“Mark, Linda, and I spent hours on each one of the drawings Michael did, deciding which ones to include,” Jeff says. Some of the drawings had to be revised. The drawing that illustrated the story about Dotty’s mom and other children in the Slate Run area catching a train to school in the winter was drawn with leaves on the trees.

“Michael changed the original to a snowy scene, but the erased leaves are still faintly visible on the original drawing,” Jeff says. In another drawing showing Bob bringing groceries up the mountain to the cabin from Wolfe’s General Store, Michael drew a baguette sticking out of the top of his rucksack. That would not be in Bob’s sack headed to the rim and was removed in the final drawing.

To complete this film the way that Jeff envisioned it, he worked a full year, six to seven days a week. Throughout the production he felt like he was living their life.

“Sometimes it felt like Bob was talking to me,” he says. This was never a project to make money. Jeff hopes the documentary and sales of the DVD will raise money for a scholarship for someone wanting to make a career and a life in forestry.

Production began in March 2019 and was completed in January 2020. It is dedicated to Jeff’s mom, a babysitter for the young Bob Webber. She died in a nursing home before he was able to interview her about that.

Before the release, there was to be a dinner celebrating everyone involved in the project, and to give all those an opportunity to meet and talk with one another. But a pandemic has other plans. Two weeks before the dinner was to be held, the state was shut down. “I was afraid that someone involved with the documentary would die before it could be seen,” Jeff relates. And that did happen. John Eastlake died this April, before the documentary could be released to the public.

At the end of our conversation, Jeff says something that speaks directly to how Bob and Dotty interacted with people. “I thought I was his best friend, but later I realized that Bob had lots of best friends.”

Mountain Home contributor Linda Roller is a bookseller, appraiser, and writer in Avis, Pennsylvania.

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