Just took a walk. What a spectacular day! It's chilly but sunny. I noticed pansies and daffodils in lots of beds here in Center City. Funny, how all roads lead to ... I ended up in a store that sells seeds. A colleague here at the paper was telling me this morning how she planted leeks in her community garden last weekend. Leeks! Something else to add to the box of seeds at home. So I bought some.
And I'm reminded by a caller that Chanticleer, that most amazingly colorful and imaginative public garden in Wayne, officially opens tomorrow (Saturday). Henceforth, it'll be open Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The staff is frantically getting ready ... cleaning up, edging the flower beds, building and planting new ones, mulching, setting out containers and checking for insect damage. Hey. Sounds a lot like what we're doing. Except their results are a gazillion times more amazing! You might not think there'd be much to see this time of year, but there's actually quite a bit: daffodils, scilla, magnolias, hellbores, and all of these in vast quantities.
If I can clean myself up after cleaning up my garden, I'm heading over this weekend! Chanticleer is a treat. First thing, I'll be checking out the flower arrangements - fresh, fun - in the ladies room by the front gate. No kidding. Even the "facilities" at Chanticleer are outrageously cool.
Anyone who comes tomorrow gets a free rooster cookie. Chanticleer, of course, was the rooster in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales:
"His comb was redder than a fine coral,
And battlemented like a castle wall.
His bill was black and just like jet it shone;
Like azure were his legs and toes, each one;
His spurs were whiter than the lily flower;
And plumage of the burnished gold his dower."
The rooster is this garden's adopted icon. And this passage from Chaucer is just like the garden. Bold and beautiful.
Hope to see you there!
