Kiss the Earth

Laura Militzer is really into seeds. She's selling more than 1,600 varieties at the flower show - at the Seed Source booth in the marketplace area - and you should see some of them! These are my absolute faves ... Franchi, from Italy, founded in 1783. The packets alone are worth the trip - giant and colorful with gorgeous photos of produce and flowers. Laura showed me the 'Lemon Leopold' sunflower and the 'Super Marconi' flat Roma bean, which she says is, hands down, the most reliable, delicious bean she's ever grown.

Laura is from Rowley, north of Boston, and the Philadelphia Flower Show - which she's come to for 11 years - is the only flower show she bothers with. "This is just a tremendous show, very uplifting," she says, comparing it to a "Broadway spectacular."

Laura says the vendors are friendly and welcoming and she sees the same customers year after year. I can see why. She has a huge selection, including tomato seeds from an outfit in Carmel, CA., called TomatoFest, more than 300 varieties of organic tomato seeds. 'You have to try the 'Julia Child' or the 'Clint Eastwood,' " Laura says.

They're big, rich, tasty, meaty, deeply grooved ... doesn't that get you in the mood for tomatoes?

Laura has something else, a novelty that she feared might make her the butt of jokes. Au contraire! I think it's a draw ... Piccoli Amici, a line of pet food seeds, food for your lizards, squirrels, canaqries, hamsters and dogs. "I'm a seedaholic," Louise says.

Doggy topiaries aren't your everyday garden fare. But here you are.

This is a new competitive class at the flower show this year. It's fun. It has a fire hydrant in the middle of the display of entries, which include ivy-filled doggies on their backs, pointing, chewing bones and doing most - I said most, not all - doggy things.

Some doggies have more "hair" than others. A couple look positively threadbare. But the humans are enjoying the view. This photo shows a dog of indeterminate lineage. He'd qualify for the threadbare category, but you know how pooches can be. Maybe he scratched his ivy off.

My thanks to everyone who came by the Inquirer/Daily News booth at the Flower Show this morning to say hi and ask gardening questions. It was fun to meet you. What an assortment of folks! Gardening sure is an eclectic draw. I met people from Lehigh County, Northwest Ohio (she voted in the primary yesterday by absentee ballot), Chester County and all points in between.

I did pretty well with most of the questions - when to prune hydrangea, good varieties of tomatoes, nothing too taxing. But I flunked voles and clematis pruning. Never had the pleasure of the former and have never figured out the latter, but I promised to get back to those folks.

Then they told ME a few things. How to do vegetables in containers, best way to grill fresh peppers, the ins and outs of composting and why you shouldn't tear out your mulberry tree. 'Cause the berries taste great in pancakes!

It was fun to meet you all, and to be reminded that you're out there. More importantly, for the future of my career and my employer, that you're out there READING!

That isn't a typo - that capitol 'B' on Borders. I'm referring to the bookstore, which is set up here at the Flower Show. Pinch yourself. This Borders has only gardening books! Imagine, everything you're looking for in one place.

I just cruised through - spent $50, as if I need more gardening books - and found a great selection. Local authors like Liz Ball, Art Wolk, Fran Sorin, Mike McGrath, Lorraine Kiefer, Claire Sawyers and many more are all represented, as are the show's featured authors, people like Joe Lamp'l, Barbara Damrosch, Paul Tukey and Rosemary Harris.

There are entire sections devoted to Pennsylvania and New Jersey flora. And just like the cookbooks I love that are devoted to one vegetable or one dish (rice, pizza, zucchini, corn), there are plant books about roses, lilies, orchids, bulbs, compost, magnolias, cacti, annuals and perennials.

I saw lots of books about this and that for dummies - though no dummies here - and special publications that discuss planting in small spaces and containers. And so much more.

Buying gardening books is usually a scattershot, frustrating experience. Not here. This is a true plant Border(s). All you can ... pay for.

It took me the entire walk through the Robertson's exhibit here at the Flower Show to figure out what was what. The exhibit comprises a series of long tables, I thought, some with white cloths and some with black. They each had a collection of vases filled with all white (roses, carnations, what looked like amaryllis) or deep purplel(callas, tulips) and some of the vases were made of crumpled up musical scores. I especially liked the waves of white cyclamen, a plant I almost aways buy in pink or red. White is wild.

The theme of the show is musical. So what on earth is Robertson's up to? I thought it was a banquet. Then I got to the end and saw the title: "Tickling the Ivories." Suddenly it occurred to me that this was supposed to represent a piano, each "table" a key. Aha! Not too many folks got it, but they seemed to like it and the whole shebang won the award for best achievement, distinctive floral design, and the horticultural society's Council Trophy.

Seems to me that Robertson's, a fixture for 80-plus years in the city and a place known for its quality flowers and arrangements, took a chance this year with a much more abstract concept than it has in years past. My memory may be faulty and if so, forgive me, but I seem to remember Robertson's doing spectacularly colorful but very traditional exhibits in years past. They have always been show favorites, for me as well.

This year's effort is diffierent, and I have to say at first I didn't like it much. Today, after going back and spending some time really looking and thinking about it, I have come to like it a lot. It's sort of the difference between a colorful gown (years past) and a tuxedo (2008). One is bright and has a lot going on; the other is more elegant, far more understated and complex.

I feel that way about the entertainment this year, as well. Last year the Irish dancers from the Aran Islands were fabulous, and the crowds clearly enjoyed them. This year the entertainment feels more sophisticated, lower-key, less predictable. The Crosstown Brass Quintet was playing just now and it felt like a dinner party. Not any that I've ever had, mind you ... but a dinner party by invitation only where all the grown-ups are on their best behavior.

So take a swing by Robertson's - it's near the front - and let me know what you think. I asked Phyllis Colleton-Carter, a caretaker from Bethlehem on her first visit to the Flower Show, for her opinion. She found the exhibit very elegant, particularly the tight bouquets of white roses, though she wasn't sure what it was all about either. "It's abstract, with a contemporary edge, like an art piece," she said.

Her traveling companion Sandra Petty, a homemaker also from Bethlehem who's been to the show three times now, said she also found Robertson's display beautiful. "I like its simplicity," she said.

Flower people can be so unlike other people you meet. So there I am talking with Phyllis and Sandra - we're like old friends after 10 minutes - and suddenly they both say, almost in unison, "Well, you deserve a hug!" and they're all over me like I'm their long lost cousin.

Were they trying to get rid of me? It makes me laugh, if so. Somehow ... this being a flower show ... I doubt it.

Besides the flowers, of course, we like a lot at this Flower Show.

The music - cool. The cheery volunteers. The exquisitely mild-mannered show-goers. Even the cleaning people and security guards are polite, making the convention center this week an oasis of civility in a sea of bad behavior. Wonderful.

Easy information. Help is all over the place. You can easily get lost in this place but if you keep your wits - and your program - about you, you should do fine. If not, there are people every few feet to help.

The horticultural society gift shop. I just dropped a tidy sum - great place to buy Christmas presents, shower and birthday gifts. You'll find nifty t-shirts, fleece vests, jewelry (bring credit card), note cards, gloves and socks (a big seller, I'm told ... guess gardeners all keep their houses cool), stuff for the kitchen and dining room that is very classy (especially the trays) and so many other things I can't begin to list them here. Plan on shopping last thing before you leave because lugging all that stuff around the show ain't fun.

As for the marketplace ... this is always a high point. I'm waiting till I'm off duty to wander these aisles, but last year I did some major damage ... copper-roofed birdhouse, sculpted bird bath, a necklace and other things that supported half of Philadelphia Green for 2007.

I did manage one purchase yesterday as I headed out - 25 longstemmed roses from Kremp Florist for $9.95 plus tax. Twenty-five! Low price because this is rose season in Ecuador and Colombia, where these blooms originated, and Kremp (plus others) bought so many they got a break. They come in every shade, making it impossible to choose.

I've had these roses for a day and they look positively electric in the office. Maybe that's the crummy fluorescent lights ... oh well. I bought more roses today so we'll see how they fare in the lighting at home. And some for coworkers ... this could become a habit. Good deal.

I like the miniatures very much .. and the pressed flowers, the plant-material jewelry and masks, which are truly remarkable, the lectures (learned about coleus, native plants and flower-arranging using whatever you can scrounge up). The big exhibits are fun to look at but I wouldn't say they're my only/major reason for going to this show year after year.

I find the competitive classes more interesting as time goes on, perhaps because every year I gain more experience growing things myself. I'm more open to the educational exhibits. That must come with age! And I'm more curious about the names of plants I see. Today, for example, and this is probably a function of having attended Ray Rogers' coleus talk, I noticed many varieties of coleus everywhere I went.

In the "Arbors" displays, one called "The Three B's" used 11 of them, ranging from lime green to bright red and dark brown. I'll be writing more about coleus, a plant I've not paid much attention to till recently, but do look at how they fill up a space with color and shape.

I like that the show now has a Family Lounge where you can take toddlers and babies to rest. Not sure who does more resting from the look of the lounge this week ... but I know the parents I saw were grateful for a semi-quiet place to park everyone. (It's in room 204-C, in the hallway near the show.)

I know I'll think of a million things after I post this, but here you go.

Most of what I don't like about the Flower Show has nothing to do with the show. It has to do with the convention center.

THE FOOD. Expensive and yucky, and if you're a vegetarian or have any dietary restrictions, you don't have a lot of choices. Is it me, or is the old regimen -- burgers and fries, sausage and pepper (with fries, natch), pizza, Chinese, uneventful salads and fried fish that looks like fried shoe -- stuff that ought to be eliminated forever from big-event menus?

Yes, there's sushi, but a small tray of it can run $7.50, and after hours of walking, seems to me that's too much money for not enough nourishment. And why does a bottle of water cost $2.50? A burger with fries and a drink $11.50? And you have to have cash. No plastic. What year is this?

Wellll... all cranky girl can say is, at least you can BRING YOUR OWN LUNCH to this event, unlike a Phillies game, where everything edible and drinkable is snatched away like so much cocaine crossing the border from Tijuana, making you a prisoner of the stadium's overpriced and unimaginative food vendors.

I finally got wise. Brought my own lunch today: PB&J.

And while we're being cranky, it bugs me that here we are, finally, at a time when recycling and being environmentally smart is prominent in the public discussion .. and we are still using plastic everything at places like the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It makes me cringe every time I see a giant trash bag go by.

Also on the we-don't-like list: CHAIRS. Not enough of them. Once again, this is the convention center and not the Flower Show, but I heard a number of complaints. The show covers 10 acres. That's a lot of hoofing to be done, especially considering that you can't begin to see this event in less than about four hours - and that's pushing it.

This matters even if you aren't elderly. A 57-year-old attorney from West Chester complained to me that she was exhausted after three or four hours and couldn't find a seat inside the show. (There are some chairs in there, on the perimeter, but most are outside the entrance, in the hallway.)

"Imagine how older people feel," the attorney said. She didnt want her age and name mentioned together, so, age wins out to prove my point.

I'm going to sleep on this and see what bubbles up tomorrow. If you have any thoughts about what you liked or didn't like at the show, whether flowers, music, exhibits or convention center, let me know. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of egg salad for tomorrow.

What did we do before cell phones?

Cell phone conversations overheard at the Flower Show this week:

"What building are you in?"

"Do you have my pocketbook?"

"No, we were supposed to meet TODAY!"

"I'm standing right here. Where are you?"

Now I've really started something. I mentioned in one of these posts that the longstemmed roses at Kremp Florist are a great deal. So of course I told everyone ... neighbors, coworkers, family ... and now they're all buying roses.

This isn't a good picture. In fact, it's horrible! The roses look smashed. Actually, they're quite fresh with a nice fragrance. Twenty-five of them for $9.95 plus tax, and there are many colors, including a curious pure white with green tint.

Best cut-flower deal at the show - and there are several florists offering it. The timing's right. It's rose time in South America - these came from Ecuador and Colombia - and Kremp and the others bought such quantities, they got a fantastic deal.

Now, we get one, too.

I bought light pink, then orange, then another orange with dark trim, and shared them with coworkers. Today a coworker bought orange ones and another bunch of dark pink. It's starting to look like spring in here. It's hard to dress up a dingy office - pardon me, oh mighty employer - but I have to say ....

Surrounded by vases filled with roses, a sweet scent in the air, I can almost forget where I am. Oh yeah. Broad Street. I tried.

Here's Big Sam and his Funky Nation band, lots of fun and shame on those party poopers who complain that the music's too loud! Get a life!

I enjoyed the entertainment at this year's show a whole lot. But this year I also enjoyed the lectures and demonstrations more than ever. They're all fairly short, so you don't feel you're missing anything by sitting there. I popped in to Karl Gercens' talk on container gardening. Karl works at Longwood and he brought a collection of containers that would have you drooling.

He explained the ins and outs of terra cotta, plastic, wood, metal and stone planters, debunked the idea that you need to put rocks in the bottom of your pots for drainage - suggesting you put old, upside down plastic pots in there and then only fill the top 12 inches or so of the container with soil-less mix, thus finding somewhere to store unwanted pots and saving on the mix. Most plants only grow roots down about a foot anyway, he says.

I went to a demonstration of how to make interesting flower arrangements out of just about anything that is or once was growing, compliments of Priscilla of "Flowers by Priscilla" in Paoli. I learned how to make fresh lavender pasta from Chef Roberta Adamo of Penne Restaurant over by Penn. (It looked so easy when she did it).

There are six more culinary demonstrations and 18 lectures scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Take advantage. It's part of why you're paying so much to get in!

And here's something nice. After you've raced from lecture to demonstration to the exhibits and competitive classes, take a break. Listen to Big Sam and the other musicians and get yourself a glass of wine. After 5 p.m. and Sunday afternoon you can buy yourself a drink on the show floor.

How very grown up.

Just after you cross under the arch at the start of the Flower Show, you'll see a bright green grand piano. This is a Steinway painted by artist Dale Chihuly, who's better known - especially to gardeners - as a glass-blower. His whimsical glass flowers and other creations have been displayed at botanical gardens across the country - he just finished a run at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh - and his work is included in more than 200 museum collections.

I saw his stuff for the first time at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in 2004. My favorite piece there was an enormous fountain filled not with water, but with Chihuly's glass interpretation of cascading, bubbling water. He did jagged glass icicles, pointing upward, shades of blue mixed with clear. It was quite stunning, with the Atlanta skyline in the background.

Chihuly is a real crowd-pleaser, which is why public gardens are so keen to do his shows. Not sure this is the case with the Flower Show's piano. His design on the lid is modernistic - most unlike the traditional flower designs artist Tim Martin is painting on another Steinway grand piano lid, elsewhere in the Flower Show. (That's worth a trip!) Swinging by Chihuly's creation several times this week, I inevitably overheard people say they thought the piano, and the idea of the piano, was interesting but they didn't like "the painting."

Ah well. It's a conversation piece, at least. It's called "Olympia" and it's part of a larger art case piano collection offered by Steinway & Sons. This is Chihuly's first design for them and he did it for the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Steinway says the lid design, superimposed over a glass top, "reflects the abstract expression of wintry mountain forests juxtaposed with the bright Promethean colors idealized by the fire of the Olympic spirit." I suspect that idea also informs the choice of bromeliad all around the display. The bloom looks like an Olympic torch, doesn't it?

Artists have been decorating musical instruments for centuries, and Steinway began creating its art case pianos in 1857. The most famous one was an ornate work by the English artist Alma Tadema in the late 1800's. It sold at auction in 1997 for $1.2 million. Other Steinway art case pianos are in the East Room of the White House and the Smithsonian.

If you're a Las Vegas kind of person, you can see one in the lobby of the Bellagio Hotel and supposedly others can be found on cruise ships. Hmmm. Just wondering: Carnival or Queen Mary?

As if we needed reminding that the Philadelphia area is loaded with gardening talent ... the awards are rolling in.

The American Horticultural Society has named "Foliage: Astonishing Color and Texture Beyond Flowers," by author Nancy J. Ondra and photographer Rob Cardillo, as one of its four 2008 Book Award winners. The other three are: "A Natural History of North American Trees" by Donald Culross Peattie, "Perennial Vegetables" by Eric Toensmeier and "Viburnums" by Michael Dirr. Winners were culled from 50 nominations of books published last year.

AHS has also named Mike Devlin and Valerie Frick winners of the Jane L. Taylor Award, which is given to those who inspire and nurture future horticulturists through children's gardening. Mike and Val, of course, founded the Camden Children's Garden back in 1999 and are still at it. They're honored with this, one of several AHS Great American Gardeners awards, for their ongoing work at the garden and also their other efforts, which include a Youth Employment and Training program for Camden youngsters through the Camden City Garden Club, a nonprofit they founded in 1985.

Wait! There's more.

In the latest issue of Horticulture magazine, you'll see a familiar image on page 47: the former Rosengarten home that's HQ for Chanticleer. This Wayne landmark, a favorite with every gardener who visits, has been given the American Public Gardens Association's Award for Garden Excellence. (The award is sponsored by the magazine.)

Bill Thomas, Chanticleer's director, then takes readers on a written tour. The photos will make you long for spring.

Congratulations, everyone! and aren't we lucky.

It was heartening, just now, to watch a group of Masterman students with shovels and picks planting four London plane trees along 17th Street by school. Led by seniors Albi Dhimitri (left) and Hasan Malik (right), the kids seemed to be having a ball. "I love trees, dude!" one yelled. And I was amazed to see that students coming out of school were high-fiving and congratulating the group for what they were doing.

And why not? Well, sure. But just imagine all the stuff these kids could've been doing. Instead, they were making our city more beautiful. Thank you!

For years, there were London planes along this block but the city took them down, saying they were diseased. (These trees do get some kind of crud - I've seen it - but a few of the kids were skeptical, suggesting they were removed because someone in the building across the street complained.) Then, to compound the problem, the tree pits were paved over. Oops!

So replanting 17th Street was a natural for Albi and Hasan's senior project, a requirement that is supposed to last the entire school year. Hasan, who started and leads a Tree Tender group in the Northeast, says they'll be planting 23 trees all over that part of the city this weekend. Even his mom, Shahida, was on hand today.

Hasan, 17, is heading to Temple upon graduating - he plans to study civil and environmental engineering. Albi is going to Penn to study "government." Beyond that, he's not sure. But the two of them have already made a major contribution to the city.

"Trees not only increase the wellbeing of everybody and the value of the city overall," says Albi, who sounds far wiser than his 18 years, "but studies show they increase relationships between people." They improve our quality of life, in other words.

"We're just putting the theories into practice," he says, "and we're happy to help the city."

Actually, 565 trees will be planted around Philadelphia over the next few days by Tree Tenders and other volunteers. Tree Tenders is a program of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the folks that just brought you the flower show. The trees are bought for $31 and then sold to anyone who wants Tree Tenders to plant them for $20 apiece. What a bargain.

Ever try to buy yourself a new street tree? And I'm sure you didn't get an army of strong young people to plant it, did you?

Mindy Maslin, PHS' tree lady extraordinaire, was on hand. You can see her hard at work in this photo. Mike Hardy was working away, too. He's from University City Green, which brought along 15 shovels and two pick-axes for the kids to use. Mike (who's just a little bit older than the guy in this photo) says in the fall 700 more trees will be planted around the city.

Even before then - Saturday, April 5, to be exact - 88 trees will be planted in University City. If you're interested in helping to continue the transformation of this remarkable neighborhood, just show up at 10 a.m. that day at Woodland Rec Center, 47th Street and Paschall Avenue, just south of Woodland. If you haven't been to University City in, oh, the last 10 years, come on down. You won't believe it.

Hasan, Albi and all their pals from Masterman out there on 17th Street today know that trees are a big part of what makes a neighborhood livable and beautiful.

I like the way they think. And it sure was fun to watch someone else do the work.

Yes, we're talking trees again, this time because of Nina Bassuk of Cornell University. Nina is the 2008 winner of the Scott Medal, given by the Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College for, among other achievements, "promoting a greater love of nature and spreading the gospel of better planning and design." She received her medal and a $12,000 award on Saturday and gave a truly inspiring speech afterwards.

Nina is a horticulture professor whose passion and research focus is urban trees and what she calls "real world applications" of her studies. One of her most exciting innovations is "structural soil," a system of soil construction that is strong enough to support sidewalks but porous enough to allow street tree roots to grow. She showed some truly horrifying slides of city trees that toppled over in storms and you could see that the roots only had enough room to dig down about six inches. No wonder they fell!

Nina's "structural soil" has been used all over the world.

It's always fascinating to go back to childhood and figure out how people came to be what they are. In Nina's case, it was a childhood spent in New York City, focused not on trees or horticulture but on music. She played the flute and played around with plants as a hobby. That order was switched when she went to Cornell undergrad.

Nina decided to concentrate on urban trees because "they have the most impact on the most people." Just how do you get trees to grow in difficult conditions? "Cities are pretty tough environments for trees to grow in. They're not like Swarthmore," she said.

City trees really suffer. They get bumped by mowers, utility trucks, cars. They get humiliated by dogs, sprayed by salt, stabbed and suffocated in their tiny, sometimes fenced-in pits and constricted and stunted by compacted soil.

Nina calls those too-small, compacted tree pits "coffins." I will never look at another street tree the same way.

The good news is Nina's "structural soil" - a combination of crushed gravel and rich organic soil - is the antidote to all of the problems I've listed. "This does work," she said, showing slide after slide of the elm, pear and palm trees thriving in her soil combination.

This is a person with what she calls a "geek-like passion" for horticulture and trees. I think her award should've been far more than $12,000! She's sort of like those MasterCard ads: priceless.

In the photo above, Nina (left) has just asked her daughter Sophie if she'd like to see her mother's medal. (The Scott Medal was designed by Walker Hancock, who did the dramatic WWII memorial sculpture inside 30th Street Station, and was originally solid gold but hasn't been since 1970.)

Sophie got right down to business. "I want to see the check," she joked. "It's going right into my college tuition fund."

Here are some of the Siberian squills (Scilla siberica) or scillas dotting the landscape at Swarthmore College. These early spring bloomers in the hyacinth family mostly come in blue, but you occasionally see them in white, pink and purple.

Not sure what to call these. I think they were white but on a cloudy day, they take on a blue tint.

For those who remember the funky blue tree on the Swarthmore campus, guess what? It's gone. The Chinese maackia (Maackia chinensis) actually died more than two years ago, just before a major perennial plant conference. No time to whack it, so rather than risk embarrassment in front of the learned conference-goers, the Scott Arboretum decided to paint the tree bright blue.

The tree became something of a conversation piece. Some people thought it was fun; others hated it. Not long ago, the tree's time came. Today there's a metal cage or sculpture (you be the judge) painted the same blue as the old tree with a Jasminum officinale 'Fiona sunrise' inside.

I'm sure the jasmine vine looks and smells great in summer. But I do miss the tree. It was a whimsical touch in a place that's often very serious. I always looked for it when I visited, being in the half of the world's population who thought it was fun.

Speaking of color, here's something else striking on campus. This is a Magnolia grandiflora or Southern magnolia with glossy green leaves and a cinnamon-hued underside. The top of the leaf is slippery, the bottom rough, and we pondered why Nature would create two such different sides to a leaf. Does it have something to do with water or sunlight?

Outstanding tree, known for its considerable height and heft and best of all, huge white summer flowers that smell like citrus. A neighbor has one of these by her front sidewalk and she says people jam on their brakes to ask its name. I've no doubt. You can smell its heavenly fragrance as you're walking along, as good a reason as I've ever heard to take a walk.

This weekend was too early to start planting most seeds in my garden. (The peas are in!) But there was plenty to do, starting with hanging the birdhouses that were stored in the garage all winter. I'd cleaned them out last fall to make them more attractive to new tenants this spring, which wasn't as easy as it sounds. Some have trap doors for easy emptying; some don't and I had the raw knuckles to prove it.

This is one bought at the Flower Show last year. It's made of cedar with a copper roof and launching pad and like the other birdhouses in the yard, was home to a nuclear bird family last spring. I think there were wrens in this one, and each time any human walked near it - no matter the benign purpose - you could hear the panicked chirping from quite a ways away. They say birds can be very territorial but for heaven's sake, what would you do if you looked out your front door and saw a giant?

Wrens are tiny birds and they like houses with similarly sized entrances and nesting space. You'd be amazed to know what's in there - tiny sticks arranged in orderly fashion interspersed with bits of paper, ribbon, shoelace, aluminum foil, even pieces of plastic from errant supermarket bags. A great lesson in recycling, if you're planning to build a nest anytime soon.

Wrens like to be about seven feet off the ground and you need to make sure the house won't go crashing down at the first stirring of strong winds. This snug little number is anchored to a magnolia branch with a stiff hanging attachment. It's near a birdbath, not too far from a seed feeder and one of those gizmos that you put an apple or orange on for birds to nibble on.

Best to vary the types of birdhouses you hang if you want to attract not just wrens but chickadees, bluebirds and nuthatches. At my house, at the moment, there are plenty of vacancies.

I'm late hopping on the hellebore bandwagon. It's been steamrolling forward for years now. But now's when they're blooming and even latecomers like me have to admit that they're something special. I have exactly one in my garden, a gift that was planted last year. It's now budding up and ready to bloom and I can't wait. I need to get more because it really is true. Once you experience these lovely things once, you'll find yourself wanting more.

(Linden Hill Gardens in Ottsville, Pa., will host a Hellebore Festival this Saturday and Sunday, March 29 and 30. Info: 610-847-1300 or www.jerryfritzgardendesign.com)

Hellebores are also known as Lenten rose but like so many things in the plant world, this makes no sense. They aren't roses, although their cup-like flowers do look a little like the wild roses you see blooming at the beach. Around here they're one of the first things to bloom in spring.

Garden professionals ooh and ahh over them but I think most ordinary gardeners have no idea. The good news is that you can find them at all the online nurseries and a lot of the earthbound ones, too, now; they're no longer considered exotic, in every sense of that word. (They're not native.)

They come in all colors, from plummy purple to greenish white, and in many variations of stripe, streak, splash and blotch, single and double flower. And nurseries are selling a good variety. Spring Hill, for example, has 'Blue Lady', 'Pink Lady', 'White Lady', 'Red Lady' and "Yellow Lady,' as well as several mixes of non-ladies. The colors are unusual, the blooms last for weeks. They do fine in shade, better in sun and each year they spread.

So although in my family we laugh about the "helluvabore" over by the yew, we're laughing to mask the pain of having just one.