Kiss the Earth

.... Back from Oklahoma, which was flat and dry and so friendly, it just might qualify as the ultimate antidote to Philadelphia, surely the rudest city on the planet. A girl could get used to such niceness. And the garden writers' gathering truly was a fun time. More on this later.

First, I wanted to share the story of Inky, nicknamed in the family "the intrepid kitty." Inky was abandoned under some office steps along Germantown Avenue 17 years ago. We took her in just a few weeks after she was born and though she was a bit of a mess, she survived and turned into a fearless feline.

For a dozen years, she lived in our little row house, her only "garden" a tiny cement (shared) patio filled with containers and window boxes that we filled with tomatoes, peppers, basil and parsley. Not much room for anything else, but Inky loved that little space. She climbed into the tomatoes and chewed the basil and sprawled across the concrete when it was sunny.

Five years ago, we moved a few doors away to a much bigger house with a much bigger - real - garden. Suddenly, Inky had pathways to traverse, dense plantings to explore, grasses to eat, catnip to swoon over and critters to challenge - birds, squirrels, possums and frequently, neighborhood kitties in search of Inky's catnip.

She became about as outdoor a kitty as an indoor cat can be, standing by the kitchen door "asking" to go out every time we turned around. Didn't matter if it was raining or snowing, freezing cold or suffocatingly humid. She wanted to go out - and would stay there all day if you let her.

Inky was at my side for weeding, for planting, for picking tomatoes and herbs. She sat on the patio and watched as I mulched and raked. She was truly a gardening kitty.

I guess you know where I'm going with this. Twice in my travels last week the cell phone rang with bad news about Inky, who'd been diagnosed with kidney disease in February. She'd been getting fluids by needle once a day since then and we were lulled into thinking she would "maintain" forever.

But while I was off in Oklahoma, she took a sudden turn for the worse. She was slipping away. She managed to hold on till my husband and I could get to the Chestnut Hill Cat Clinic, which - if you have kitties - is a special place.

We sat on a bench with her on Saturday in the warm sunshine. She was wrapped in a blanket, looking tiny and frail. She somehow summoned the energy to meow at a squirrel skittering across the parking lot. In fact, she tried to get down and chase him. She didn't realize, I guess, that her back legs weren't working anymore.

So many problems, and yet it took us a while to make the decision. When we finally told the vet we were ready to let Inky go, he assured us we were doing the right thing. She was gravely ill and would only get worse. How could we let her live out her days in a cage in a kennel?

Still, it was a tough weekend. We see Inky everywhere in the garden. Last night as I was walking around surveying the damage this drought or near-drought has brought, I imagined her loping around every corner, her head popping up among the flowers, as it did every day and night of every summer we had together.

When we get her ashes back, we'll sprinkle them in all her favorite places in the garden. That's a comfort.

It's not often you have a pet with a green thumb. I guess the correct phrase would be "green paw." I rest easy knowing she enjoyed that to the very end.

This is my last photograph of Inky. It's nothing like her old intrepid self but you get the idea. Wonderful girl.

One of the neat surprises of my recent trip to Oklahoma City, for the annual garden writers' symposium, was a visit to the test gardens at the Oklahoma State University there. (If any of my bosses are reading this, this is why it's important, not just fun, to attend professional meetings even if they happen to be held in places that are difficult to get to!) I would've never thought of peppers as an exciting garden plant, but when I walked through the beds of colorful peppers at the university, I was absolutely amazed.

One plant in the beds, already on the market, is called "Black Pearl." It has slightly glossy, deep purple-black leaves and the most dramatic, pearl-like black peppers that glistened in the bright garden light. As these peppers mature, they turn bright red, which may entice you to eat them. Which is OK, because even though they're considered for show, they are edible - and hot.

Just imagine this plant paired with silver, white or pink flowering plants. And you know how trendy black is. I can tell you that when a bunch of writers came upon "Black Pearl," whose proper name is Capsicum annuum 'Black Pearl,' you heard a chorus of "Wow!" Consider the group, but still. That is high compliment. I guess I was too blown away, or too deep in a horticultural stupor, to take a picture 'cause I can't find one among the hundreds on my digital camera.

I did, however, shoot this plant, which was another gorgeous pepper. I think this is "Masquerade," another one that's readily available if you know what you're looking for. The peppers start out purple, turn to yellow and end up red.

As you can see, in a massed grouping, they're outrageous.

I've never been a big fan of using ornamental kale. Somehow it looks unappetizing as well as ugly. But - and from what we heard in Oklahoma, home gardeners are increasingly thinking the same way - I could go for peppers out back among the flowers in a big way.

They get tall enough that you could plant them with brightly colored zinnias or marigolds or some other annual to give your garden a blast of color that would get you through an August or September like we've just had.

That alone recommends them.

Mark Bays works not far from the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, but when his building shook and the skies turned black on that awful morning 17 years ago, he figured it was thunder. Then he saw the billowing smoke and realized something terrible was happening.

It was April 19, 1995, and he was watching the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the federal building downtown. What few Americans remember or knew in the first place is that 324 buildings in this flat, quiet city center were damaged or blown out by the bomb set off by Timothy McVeigh. "It was like a war zone, with glass all over," Bays recalled during a recent session with garden writers in the city. "It was a horrific sight."

A lot of folks didn't go home that day, including Bays. They raced to the disaster. There was an eight-hour wait to donate blood, and a later study revealed that fully 78 percent of the people in Oklahoma City were directly linked to the victims. One woman I spoke to during my visit said she knew four. There were 168 deaths, including 19 children, and 800 injured.

While I was in Oklahoma City, I visited the memorial on the site of the bomb blast twice - once in the afternoon, once late at night to experience its full impact. It's a powerful thing to describe - 168 empty bronze and stone chairs that are lit up after dark and a long reflecting pool flanked by two huge gates or arches. One is inscribed with the time 9:01, the other with 9:03. The pool between them is designed to represent the moment of the blast.

The federal building is long gone, replaced by a new one nearby.

Mark Bays is the urban forestry coordinator for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, and he's made a special study of what has come to be called the "survivor tree," an American elm that was shattered and singed that morning - but survived. Largely because of Bays, the city rescued the tree, removed what was left of the concrete around it, enriched the soil and pruned it in a way to promote healing and future growth.

Families of victims and just regular people like me who visit the memorial often sit or gather under this remarkable tree. As I did so, I was reminded again of the healing power of water and trees. It was a warm, sunny day on my first visit, and it felt slightly surreal to be resting under this huge, leafy tree. It was hard to get my arms around the fact that so much death and horror had unfolded all around it just 12 years before.

Compounding the sadness is the realization that most Americans have forgotten the Oklahoma City bombing. Timonthy McVeigh was found guilty and executed three months before 9/11, and that momentous event has overshadowed everything that came before.

But if you walk down the streets that ring the memorial site, which is now a national park, you'll see a fence stuffed with mementoes of the dead. A formal portrait here, an I.D. badge there, baby toys, poems, all the wrenching reminders of the human cost of the evil that McVeigh and his co-conspirators did.

I don't have deer in my city garden, though they've occasionally been sighted nearby, obviously on the way over. I don't have groundhogs or aphids or Japanese beetles - yet.

I do, however, have squirrels, and not to complain 'cause I know a lot of gardeners out there have horrendous problems with pests, but squirrels can be trying, to put it mildly. This time of year, especially, they're out of control ... not crazed by hormones, but by the will to live through the winter.

They're digging up bulbs planted last spring! They've made so many holes in the garden it looks like a golf course for amateurs. They're grabbing whatever they can, hiding it anywhere and ... sampling my tomatoes like there's no tomorrow.

I guess in their little brains, there IS no tomorrow. But do you have to rub it in, leaving me your half-eaten messes?

This has been a terrible year for tomatoes in my garden, and more than a few of you have told me the same about yours. We've concluded that after a perfect spring, the horrendously hot weather pretty much sealed the deal for tomatoes, which really don't like temperatures over about 90 degrees. They just didn't ripen for the longest time, and by the time one or two started turning, we were headed for fall.

Over the weekend, I began the process of putting my garden to bed for the winter, which meant yanking the slo-mo tomato plants that have tormented me all summer. There were dozens of greenies on the stalks, which I know will never ripen before frost, so out they went, fodder for my never-ending learning curve.

This time last year, I was still harvesting beautiful tomatoes. I don't mind feeding the squirrels, but they've managed to seize on this year's vulnerability, ignoring all else in the garden. In fact, as the weeks have gone by, more than a few neighbors, coworkers and friends - whom I happily supplied with tomatoes last summer - have asked, "How're the tomatoes this year?"

Don't ask me. Ask the *&&*^%&^*&!@) squirrels.

One thing I love about aristocratic Brits - and historically, there's a lot to not love - is the way they say purple. I don't know how to write it phonetically... puh'pull, maybe? I mention this because a fellow gardener lent me her tapes of the columns of Vita Sackville-West, the English poet, novelist, gardener and outrageous character who was, in some circles, as famous for her affair with Virginia Woolf as she was for her gardens at Sissinghurst Castle and her gardening columns for the London Observer. She wrote her weekly column beginning in 1947, and several times she mentions puh'pull irises and crocuses. Every time it makes me smile.

Janet McTeer reads the columns and she's the perfect one to do so. An acclaimed actress, she's actually played the part of Sackville-West on BBC-TV. She has it nailed. The tapes I'm listening to are called "In Your Garden Again," one of a series of four sets, I think, that are available on Amazon.com for between $17 and $27.

When my friend first suggested I listen to these tapes in my car, I protested. I don't drive enough to listen to books-on-tape. But she persisted. And while I don't drive long distances too often, I seem to drive quite a lot in dribs and drabs. Believe me. Listening to Vita Sackville-West's musings about her castle garden month by month more than a half-century ago is really entertaining.

Take, for example, her distaste for two popular roses at the time - American Pillar and Dorothy Perkins, both ramblers that are very vigorous, pretty disease-free and producers of immense clusters of small pink flowers. Sackville-West calls them her "arch enemies" in the rose garden and opines that they should be banned forever!

She much prefers Felicite et Perpetua, an old garden rose, which means it's been in cultivation since before 1867. Unlike the ones she dislikes, this climber is extremely fragrant. I'm with her on this. So many roses are lovely to look at, but one with a sweet fragrance wins me over every time.

Sackville-West - who, despite her many affairs, supposedly had a passionate and happy marriage - goes on about winter aconite and tiny crocuses and the many letters her Observer columns generate. Part of the charm of these tapes is remembering what it was like, even in my lifetime, to get hand-written letters from readers.

Another thing this little interlude has done is remind me of the power of audio, and how much fun it is to listen while driving to a period piece so erudite and quirky, the aggravations of driving in Philadelphia seem to melt away.

Must be the power of puh'pull.

This morning I visited the Burpee Company's Fordhook Farm outside Doylestown, where research director Grace Romero and I dodged raindrops while touring the farm's many gardens. They have fun names like "Happiness Garden" and "Nook Garden," "Icehouse Garden" and "Veranda Garden."

It was in the "Happiness Garden," appropriately enough, that I found a plant that even I, a hardened mum-hater, could love. I hate to be so strident. It isn't all mums I dislike, just the endless rows of identically mounded, predictably colored, not-really-hardy mums that are foisted on American consumers every year at this time. They're so boring! And they don't last.

But you should see the the chrysanthemum known as 'Sheffield pink' growing along the borders of Fordhook Farm's "Happiness Garden." Billowing waves of salmon pink or apricot pink, whatever's your fancy, mums, all without mildew, blooming up a storm. These beds, Grace said, were four years old - and still looking fresh.

I'm a huge fan of asters, and noticed just this morning that a climbing aster I bought last spring was begining to bloom. It's staked on one of those cool curlicue stakes, its branches outstretched like welcoming arms and covered with tiny pink buds. The next few days should be fun ones for this plant.

But 'Sheffield pink" is a keeper of a chrysanthemum. It reminds me of both a delicate daisy and a great big aster, and it sounds as tough and resiliant as those two. It does great in average soil, like most plants likes good drainage, and grows best in full sun. It gets about 3 feet high and blooms well into fall - even after a light frost.

And what a payoff. Grace thinks it's a wonderful perennial that more consumers would like if they only knew about it. Apparently this flower has been used in European gardens for some time.

At this time of year, any plant that has color and isn't shriveled up or reduced to lace curtains by bugs is a plus in my book. Imagine having waves of 'Sheffield pink' outside your kitchen!

Through the miracle of reclassification, its correct botanical name is Dendranthemum 'Sheffield Pink.' I found it online at www.Burpee.com for $8.95 but a simple Google search turned up lots of other sources, too. This is the time to get it and stick it in the ground for a real show next fall. Go for the biggest plant you can get. That gives it a better chance to thrive.

Finally, a mum for me.

Ornamental grasses almost always look magnificent in photos. Ever notice that? Long, sleek sentries lining a walkway or elegant groupings in the landscape. So how come they look so horrible in my garden?

They were beautiful when first planted three summers ago. For the first two, they were an interesting and attractive focal point in the middle of my main perennial area... willowy, breezy, nice to look at even on the hottest of days. All of a sudden, it seems, they took off, headed to the left, to the right, toward the sky. The other day, when it was still balmy and lazy, I looked across the garden and realized, with considerably dismay, that the grasses had gone so gonzo, they'd filled up about one-third of the space they were sharing with my shrubs and flowers.

Not only that, but they were blocking the view of everything behind them. The worst thing was realizing that they'd only get taller and broader and that soon I'd have a garden full of nothing - visible, at least - but grasses, an impenetrable thicket that I had virtually no chance of pruning or controlling.

Imagine ornamental grasses on steroids. Good grief. You can't even get your arms around them. How on earth was I going to divide these guys?

Ornamental grasses once were thought of as exotic, not the kind of thing you'd plant on the East Coast, let alone in a city garden. But that's far from true anymore. Grasses are now a desirable part of almost any landscape. They're considered bold and free-spirited and, with so much variety, extremely versatile. I still believe all that. Just not in my garden.

It's a matter of scale. If I lived in the suburbs or rural corners of Chester County, the grasses now choking my garden would be just the thing. Even better if I lived on a prairie, surrounded by long fields, deep woods and big sky. But zip code 19129?

I do have some regrets. I really loved my "zebra grass," Miscanthus sinesnsis 'Zebrinus.' It was a real conversation-starter, with its chartreuse green foliage with yellow horizontal stripes.

But at this point, I'm determined to figure out a way to get it - and the rest of my grasses - removed. They will return, perhaps, in my next life. When I'm living on the prairie.

Some people go to incredible lengths to protect their fig trees over the winter. They wrap it in burlap or blankets and dump leaves inside. They dig a hole next to it, tip the tree over and bury it sideways till spring. They mummify it in an old bed sheet or cover it with a plastic bucket.

Sounds like a lot of work to this lazy gardener. I'd hoped to bypass all these crazy rituals by buying a Chicago Hardy fig, which supposedly can tolerate a cold Northern winter, especially if it's planted in a protected area of the yard or garden.

So I bought one last year but was chagrined, when it arrived, to realize that it was only a few inches tall. Gee, it looked so big in the catalogue! I planted it that spring in the middle of the garden, thinking it would grow tall and wide, flourishing in the southern exposure and eventually towering over all my perennials. Wouldn't that be a terrific focal point? There are no leaves like fig leaves.

Then the oops factor set in. I do this more than I'd like ... the fig tree started to grow but then, so did everything around it until it was dwarfed and then obscured. One day, while rooting around in there, I discovered the little fig. I'd forgotten all about it. Amazingly, it was still alive, which is about the best thing I can say about it.

After much thought, I transplanted it to a corner of the garden that has the same warm exposure and a wall behind it to retain the sun's heat. And there it's been, through last winter, this spring and summer, and now fall.

It's a good size, at last, maybe 18 inches. Leaves are nice and green. I think it likes the sun and warmth of the wall. It has an azalea in front of it, which probably helps protect it, too. No figs yet. I'm hoping for next year.

Every time I do something dumb like this, I think to myself: This is a teachable moment. I need to think more about what a plant will look like as it grows, yes, but also what the plants around it will be doing. Think a season or two (or three) down the road.

And while that lesson is sinking in, let's have a toast: to a balmy winter!

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