Kiss the Earth

Shows you how long I've been hanging around the garden ... it was 17 years ago, almost to the day, that I wrote a story about the restoration of Fairmount Park's Azalea Garden, 4.4 acres nestled behind the art museum, off Kelly Drive. In that story, the restoration project's manager remarked that before the project began, the garden was "a big bang of color in May," and that was it.

"Now it's a symphony for all seasons," she said.

I was remembering that story, and the old azalea beds, when I passed by this morning on the way to work. The garden is looking beautiful, right on the verge of, as Ginger Nicholson enthusiastically put it, "exploding."

Ginger, an artist, printmaker and photographer, is also a longtime volunteer with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. She walks in the Azalea Garden every day and does voluntary cleanup with PHS once a month. She helps pick up debris and trash, deadhead and prune, depending on what the season is.

In 1988, when the garden renovation first got going, the place was a mess. Weeds like mugwort and knotweed had smothered some of the azaleas, several of the elms were diseased and the soil was as hard as concrete. Thousands of dollars, bulbs, perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees later ... "It's an amazing space," says Ginger, who lives a block away and considers the Azalea Garden her personal back yard.

Wedding parties sometimes vie for photo position and the place is so well used, volunteers often have a lot of cleanup to do. Kind of awful to think that some folks are tossing trash literally in the middle of one of the prettiest public green spaces around. Ginger was noticing the trash accumulating last week, "then Earth Day came and thank heavens, people came and cleaned it all up," she says.

Every year, new things get planted to replace dead or damaged plants. This year, PHS is planting new hostas, begonias, coral bells and dogwoods. They provide the soft context for the azaleas, which is what people mainly come to see.

There's something for everyone, whatever size and color you like ... about a dozen colors in all, ranging from pure white to flame orange and shades of pink and purple. And in another couple of weeks, bingo! The symphony will reach crescendo - for this season, at least.

I plan on stopping by to listen.