The Kindness of Gardeners

This neighborhood is one for the ages. Bay windows jut out into enormous oak trees. Turrets rise on every corner. And, if you stand on your front porch, and you look down the block, you see porches until they disappear at the vanishing point.

I think this neighborhood must attract people who relish fresh air, and sunlight, and downright neighborliness.

The days I get to stay all day in this place are magic, and rare. Most days I leave his place, on the bike, chug five to ten miles away. But some days I am here, all day, and wonder why I ever bother to leave.

Today I labored for a favorite client. She is discerning. Particular. Hard to deal with, some might say. No, she is not. She knows what she loves and is impatient until she gets it. I respect that.

We started with crabgrass and a chain link fence, and overgrown, truculent hollies. I built her a cedar fence, wisteria arbor, paths, a trellis. I went on quixotic quests for white camellias she wanted me to espalier: pink or blush or anything more common just would not do. I separated my shoulder hoisting her cryptomeria, or Japanese temple cedar, over the wrought iron fence: the hazards of a one man show.

Today I hack away at an ancient pyracantha, or firethorn, a wicked shrub of menacing spikes. Its root mass was a tangle, dense, hard as a rock, at least 75 years old if not a hundred. It's time had come. A soft, ice blue, feathery cypress will replace it. The menacing barberry met a similar fate. For her, it is all about the texture.

For the limited time I spend in my own neighborhood, I marvel at how many people know me by name. But it is that kind of place. We all walk to the shops, and see each other at the Farmers Market, the brewery, the theatre that mounts shows in Calvary Church.

Today as I labored, it was a cavalcade. Of neighbors, and passersby. Everyone wanted to make sure on this sweltering day I was hydrated. I assured them a little sweat never hurt anyone, and was the body's efficient cooling system.

I still don't know how everyone knew. I have mentioned it but to a few. But one after another, they approached, wishing me well.

A neighbor I know by face, but not name, with whom I last conversed six years ago, brought me a tiny pot. A little seedling of Baptisia australis, or false indigo. She remembered from those many years ago that it was my favorite plant.

And as the day went on, the offerings continued: Assorted hostas. Hens and chicks. Rhubarb. Crocosima. And, I kid you not, a seven-foot tall, red-and-white dappled, All-American, Fourth of July rose bush.

It is as if they wanted me to take a piece of this place with me.

I am humbled.

Someone remembered how much I love old stones, and brought me a Philadelphia antique curbstone.

Someone else brought me a rusty old horseshoe, the kind we are always finding when we dig around here.

I somehow ended up with a seven foot section of wrought iron fencing as well.

The kindness of gardeners.

I don't know what the future holds, or for sure where I am living, or how I will earn my keep.

But all I know is when I depart this place next week, bound for the craggy sandstone cliffs above the Cuyahoga's deepest gorge, my U-haul will be packed with some rather unusual items.

Not the least among them, a gaudy, glorious, seven-foot tall Fourth of July rose. I'll shower the Turnpike, from one end to the next, with it's garish, jubilant, glorious petals.

Intense Urban Horticulture

I've been doing this urban horticulture gig so long, I sometimes forget my workday is rather peculiar.

So here is a day in the life of an Urban Horticulturist.

I awaken to squirrels scampering up craggy bark and birds chirp chirp chirping happy May tunes. My second story bay window juts out into an enormous oak tree, so it is like sleeping in a giant tree house. The night before, I fell asleep listening to opossums, coons and other critters of the night slink up and down that same tree. It's a whole world up in that oaken canopy.

Breakfast: oatmeal with black cherries, turkey sausage, waffles, peanut butter toast, and a pot of coffee.

I load a few tools in a messenger bag, and prepare my trusty steed: a 1977 Motobecane French racing bike.

Heading north up 48th Street, the sky is a perfect blue with wispy clouds over Calvary's spire. Each day I gage the weather by how the sky looks against this stone tower. I pause to admire my neighbor's Ohio Buckeye, Aesculus glabra, in full crimson bloom against a Queen Anne turret, and snap a few pics. I am always looking for inspiration. 

Across the street, I check in on my client's Golden Raintree, Koelreuteria paniculata, planted last fall. It survived a brutal winter, a hit and run with a garbage truck, and is leafing out rather nicely.

I bike four miles to Center City, resist the urge to snap and shoot this stunning May morn. There is too much inspiration today, and I am on a deadline.

I chain the bike to a pole, and pick up my reserved Philly Car Share Prius. I make my way to Kensington, and an abandoned industrial site that is now a nursery.

Today I am picking up things for the Rittenhouse townhouse's summer window boxes. I have ideas in mind, but I design on the fly: what looks good. It is kind of like French daily marketing: you go to the market and end up having for dinner each night what looks freshest and best.

I was thinking big bold and tropical for this summer, but a few lacy leaved weeping Japanese maples catch my eye. So we will do something delicate. We'll balance their burgundy leaves with chartreuse and yellow. I load my wagon cart and keep trying different combinations until I find what works best.

I pay for the plants, and treat myself to a few early treats from their farmstand, rhubarb and honey are early season offerings.

Navigate back to Center City, double park the Prius, endure honking and wailing as I scurry to unload in a traffic jam.

I return the Prius, get the ladder, dismantle winter's plantings to make way for spring.

Summer plants are planted, numerous chats with curious passersby, attempt to fix the drip irrigation system (quick bike trip 5 blocks to the hardware store), but fail. Get some fiberglass repair tape, that will do for now.

Survey the back patio, try to assess why some things are dying, plan what is needed, chat with the homeowner, figure out the bill.

Job one completed, it is 11:00 AM.

Walk one block to the School of Psychoanalysis, clean up and water their boxes. The early spring plantings are holding up in the dappled shade of a  honey locust, that will buy me a few weeks before I need to put in summer plants.

Now, to the estate. But first, a quick siesta at Schuylkill Banks Park. On a grassy knoll next to a brown and slow-flowing rain swelled river, I lie down and rest my eyes, against the steady patter of recreational joggers, bikes, bladers, and Moms and nannies pushing baby buggies that cost more than my first two cars.

I awaken to a dropdead gorgeous blue sky with white fluffy clouds, and linger for a few moments taking it it.

Re-mount the steed, detour to fill the messenger bag with sandwiches, and embark on 9 mile journey to the Estate.

I navigate the beautiful piece of heartbreak that is Lancaster Pike and West Philadelphia, cross City Line Avenue, and am enveloped in the pastoral calm of St. Charles Seminary. I pause for a moment to take in all the green and the quiet, while the carillon chimes. I check in on the dogwoods by the gates, this is their final flourish. I have seen an entire season unfold with their petals over the last four weeks.

Finally, the estate. Park the bike, walk the perimeter. Take it in. Make mental list of all that needs doing. Realize there are not enough hours in the day.

And so, I set out, one task at a time. Chat with the property owners, adjust my priorities to accommodate theirs.

Work in the orchard, weed and edge the new plantings, repair some turf, move several shrubs, begin the endless task of removing the English Ivy and pachysandra that threaten to engulf every one of these old Mainline estates.

Labor in the grandmotherly sweet fragrance of lilacs, at their peak today, along with the azaleas. Pop more Benadryl to combat that selfsame pollen.

The half silver moon is visible though the sun has not set. The neighbor's carriage post lamps flicker on, signalling the end of a day's labor.

Seven miles in low gear (need to make time to get that gear cable fixed) back to 48th Street. Greeted by my nocturnal friends, the silvery opossum and the potbellied raccoons, scampering in the trashcans and stealthily lurking in their urban arboreal Eden.

Another day of intense urban horticulture.