Kiss the Earth

Ray Rogers, pictured below, is the author of the new book "Coleus: Rainbow Foliage for Containers and Gardens" and the subject of a story I've written to appear in the paper on April 11. I heard him speak at the Flower Show this year and was so inspired, I invited myself to visit him at Atlock Flower Farm way up in Somerset County. That's where he grows row upon row of these weird little lovelies, known for changing color, leaf shape and pattern by the light, season and generation.

Have you ever heard of such a plant? Many other plants fight long-held associations with their earlier, less interesting versions. Hostas, geraniums, hydrangeas, lilacs, irises, roses ... come to mind, along with legions of others. Years of breeding and hybridizing have produced exciting, surprising new versions of just about every flower we've known.

So it is with coleus, which always used to be synonymous with pink, green, cream. I was amazed at the variety and beauty - the colors alone! - of the coleus in Ray's hoop houses. And this is a plant with a sense of humor. The names are riotous: 'Mr. Wonderful,' 'Religious Radish' and 'Heart of Darkness' don't even begin to tell this story. The colors are magnificent. I know garden commentary is full of hyperbole, but you'd have to see these plants before you condemn the superlatives. They're justified.

In this photo, Ray looks as if he's dreading even one more minute of showing me around. In fact, he was unfailingly enthusiastic during my entire three-hour visit.

He grew up in Scott Township, outside Pittsburgh, worked hard to lose the accent though occasionally his 'o's' give him away. He claims it was "the edge of the frontier," full of farmland and forests that, of course, are gone now. Interesting to me that so many horticulturists I interview grew up in similar circumstances, with open spaces to play in and explore. I'm convinced that this is where it starts. (A sobering thought when you think of how many kids today don't have the room or the inclination to truly play outside.)

He's always been interested in flowers. "I just can't explain why," he says. "I held a trowel before I could walk." He remembers his mother giving him his first coleus at about age 4, probably 'Rainbow,' one of the oldies. And he insists that he settled on horticulture as a career about three years later. Must be nice!

Ray is a Penn State grad, a former intern at Longwood - "10 weeks in Paradise," he calls his time there - and a curatorial intern at Morris Arboretum. He worked for three years at Morris, where he clarified his calling. He would be a "plant missionary."

He's spreading the word about coleus, which he insists is the same singular and plural, so please no coleuses! and he shared the latest term for coleus obsession: coleust. That's cole-ee-ust. As in lusting for coleus.

I think I have it.

After a screeching wind last night - one that upended a bird bath in the garden - dawn came quietly. The buds covering the magnolia tree out back somehow survived. These upright buds have always entranced me. In earliest spring, they split open in waves to reveal creamy flowers colored the palest of pinks, rose and mauve. In the semi-darkness of the morning, they seem to be shivering but maybe that was me. When the weather warms up and more of them bloom, it'll be showering pink petals.

But first it'll be cold. Then messy. The blossoms I admired this morning will tumble off, turn from pink to brown and make walking treacherous for my neighbors. All part of the season's start-up. In April, best experienced at dawn.

If you look closely, you'll see a male cardinal, one of the most beautiful birds ever, according to Ruth Pfeffer of Willow Grove. I spent more than three delightful hours with her yesterday, talking about her love of birds and the outdoors. Ruth's story will be in the paper later this spring and it will be a treat.

I was surprised to see that she doesn't live in the woods. She doesn't really have a lot of property and yet birds flock to her back and side yards. She's got feeders, bird baths, nice white ash trees for nesting and lots of places to hide and be warm. Even containers that held plants last year are left on the deck for birds to plunder for insects and sticks.

Hanging around with Ruth makes you see the world differently, adding another layer to the gardening perspective we already have. It's also striking to experience the joy she exudes, joy that isn't just about birds but is enhanced by them.

And it was a surprise to hear her say that no matter where you travel, you'll find few sights as beautiful as this one - a cherry red male cardinal, perched in a forsythia bush on a cold spring day, looking for the female who isn't yet his mate but will be soon. A few minutes after this (bad) photo was taken, a pale brown female joined him briefly in the bush, then flitted away. Such a coquette.

"She'll be back," Ruth said.

Cruising through some garden centers at this time of year is interesting, to say the least. Yes, it's OK to put some stuff in the ground this early. I have a tiny cherry tree - and at about four inches, it truly is tiny - that's ready to go. And pansies are good. So are lettuce, peas, broccoli, cabbage ...

But what are these places doing filling up with geraniums? Notice, they aren't putting them on display outside. They're inside, covered up, where it's nice and warm.

When I asked a staff person at one of the garden centers about this, he said, "Just because we put them out doesn't mean you have to buy them." Ha ha.

But people are buying them. I asked one gardener who succumbed what she planned to do with her cartload of geraniums, given that it's too early to plant them safely. "I don't know," she said, "but I couldn't resist."

Stores are counting on it.

Buds and stumps aren't usually the stars of the show. But this week during a visit to Longwood Gardens, I was struck by them. There wasn't much in bloom except for some hyacinths, a few tulip beds and pansies, which is another way of saying there were fewer distractions here than usual. (The inside experience, in the Conservatory, is another story.)

So I was able to look closely at the buds. This one, of a tree peony, was so elegant. The baby red bud looks full of energy, almost like a paintbrush in pause mode. I have a few tree peonies in my garden that are beginning to emerge. I almost like them better unopened, though they are an exquisite blushing bloom.

Tree peonies aren't really trees. They're shrubs. I guess "shrub peony" doesn't have the requisite cachet! And you might guess this plant's origin by looking at it; it recalls many images in Asian art. The tree peony was first cultivated in China, especially by the imperial families. Royal families everywhere, it seems, had a lot of leisure time. Not so all the serfs of the world

The other photo here is of a purple smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria), which is grown for its striking deep purple leaves. I don't know ... the stump looks pretty striking to me. Pruning remains a mystery chez moi, but here at Longwood, naturally, like all else it's done to perfection. Though we love to get out there in the fall and whack away, most pruning is done in spring. The older growth is pruned off to stimulate new growth; it's always a trick to time this properly. You want to do it before new branches start popping out; otherwise, you've killed your chances for flowering this year.

Just look at the interesting pattern a spring haircut created here.

This is Megumi Yoshida, a 20-year-old from Saitama, a suburb of Tokyo, who's Japan's Cherry Blossom Queen for the next two years. Megumi is studying English literature in college, speaks the language very well - far better than our Japanese - and had fun using it today at Morris Arboretum. She met a large contingent of girls from Springside School and graciously let herself be photographed from every angle.

She was chosen from an initial group of 213. The 18K gold crown that goes with the title contains 200 cultured pearls donated by Mikimoto and apparently is quite large. Megumi travels with a smaller version, and instead of the grand ceremonial kimono that goes with the title, she wears her mother's orange and green silk one. It's very beautiful, embroidered with the Japanese crysanthemum and other symbols, and she says it dates to her mother's pre-marriage days. You can tell because the sleeves are long. Shorter sleeves indicate that the woman is married. I guess so she can wash the dishes.

Megumi has already been to China and to Capitol Hill, where she met Nancy Pelosi, about as far from a traditional, kimono-wearing gal as you can get. Tomorrow she flies home. Chaperone Sonoko Kudo, director of the Japan Cherry Blossom Association, says her charge will visit Germany next year.

The staff at Morris credits the lack of frost this year for the "cherries" being so beautiful. They really are. Down by the arboretum's garden railway, the cherry trees were so thick tiny pink and white petals were drifting by on the wind. Since I didn't have my glasses on, they looked like so much fur.

Everyone seems to be stepping a little lighter on this glorious spring day. Between "the queen's coming" and the flying fur, quite a day.

We all love color in the garden, and sometimes it seems we're obsessed with it. Bright, primary colors in containers, in the beds and baskets that surround the house.

Walking through the conservatory at Longwood I suddenly landed in the camellia garden, in full bloom. Red, pink, coral and then ... white. In the midst of so much color, its absence was a lot more interesting.

White is both celebratory and mournful, fit for a wedding or funeral. Its lack of pigment gives us the emotional task of filling it with the appropriate sentiment. It's happy, it's sad, it's memorably pleasing and elegaic.

It's elegant in ways that pink and red will never be. Pure, clean, quiet, filling and expansive and small, depending how you look at it.

Color-crazed gardeners shun white. Where's the zing? Even fans complain about flowers that open white and fade to brown. (Zinnias come to mind.)

For me, the starkest whites border on the clinical, bringing to mind doctor's offices and hospital stays, definitely not pleasant associations. These camellias, white enough, brushed my cheek like a soft pillow.

Meet Cleo, the hirsute companion of Ray Rogers. Ray is the coleus guy you've read about here and in the paper (hope so). This portrait of Cleo was taken after she thwarted my attempt to sit down. Like a lot of plants and some cars, she's a hybrid. Lovely disposition.

Speaking of Ray and his coleus, I've had a lot of calls and emails asking how to contact Atlock Flower Farm, where he raises a huge array of great coleus. Atlock Flower Farm is in Somerset, N.J. Website is http://atlockfarm.com/, phone is 732 356 3373.

Say hi to Cleo.

Now here's a plant that's rarely on the local radar: Sweet broom. That's 'cause it won't last the winters around these parts. But it's extraordinary. Bright yellow blossoms in spring on stems with sweet pea-like leaves, which makes sense because this big mounded shrub is actually a member of the pea family. And so fragrant. After even a mild winter, the scent is heavenly. We think of all we've missed since last summer.

This sweet broom's at Longwood. How dramatic, wand over wand of yellow, especially in the cloudy light of early spring. Imagine hillsides of these in their native habitat in the Canary Islands. At Longwood they're paired with gray-leaved euryops, a plant from South Africa that's in the daisy family.

The good news is that there's a hardy broom out there that works in zones 4-9. (Our area is mostly 6 and 7). I found a good one online - Spanish gold hardy broom or Cytisus purgans. It gets about four feet high and six feet wide, supposedly not too tempting to deer (ha) with a recommended underplanting of nepeta, or catmint, that tough, purple-flowering plant that answers a variety of garden problems.

Catmint and broom. Sounds like a blues act.

Despite the fact that these native plants emerge every April, they're called May apples. And like so much in the plant world, it's spelled different ways - Mayapple, mayapple, may apple, May apple.

"April apples" might've been more accurate but perhaps that was too much of a tongue-twister. In any event, each year when I see them, they remind me of running through the woods when I was a kid. I can see it so clearly. I can even smell it - the moss, the trees and dirt.

May apples poke up like an unfurled umbrella, perfectly symmetrical and oddly colored. Once they're all unfurled, you can get down on the ground and look through them. It's like a crowded day at a very green beach - just crowds of umbrellas, no people.

They produce a pretty white flower under the leaves - I think that part comes in May - and later in the season, a berry - the "apple." We never ate the berry, but I picked a lot of the flowers, which can carpet the floor of a forest to wonderful effect. Imagine them in your garden.

These were spotted over at the Schuylkill Center, where we went for a quick hike. There wasn't a soul in the place. No human soul, that is. There were so many birds calling and chattering, it felt like we were in the jungle. I think I'd like to be a bird here in my next life - starting in May.

Met up with this interesting creature at one of the ponds at the Schuylkill Center. You could hear the traffic on the Expressway in the distance, but here at the pond, life was tranquil. I think this is a painted turtle, and as I quietly (or so I thought) tiptoed around the perimeter of the pond to get a better look at him, you could hear PLOP! PLOP! Dozens of frogs jumped into the water.

This big guy seemed to watch me as I moved along but he didn't budge. Guess he was lining up his next meal. Mmmm... maggots. Mmmm ... larvae and beetles. Toss in a few insects, some tadpoles, small fish and plants, and you've got the makings of a Sunday buffet.

The official term for sitting motionless on a rock or log is - are you ready for this? Basking. Now that's a technical term I can get my arms around. Interestingly, painted turtles bask because they have no control over their own body temperature and can't generate heat. So they depend on the sun to keep their internal thermostat steady.

Talk about sunburn! Painted turtles have to watch it. Two hours in the sun is about their limit. If they go longer and get overheated, it's omelet time.

Fortunately, it was an overcast morning. Much better to partake of the buffet than be it.

This, believe it or not, is a tree house, Longwood Gardens-style. And true, it's a house in a tree. Guarantee it looks nothing like any tree house you or I may have known! Whoo-ee. It looks like Tree House Mews or Tree House Commons, a new development I just made up but which could be down the road from Longwood.

At a preview of "Nature's Castles" last week, director Paul Redman explained that the idea behind Longwood's new tree house exhibit, which opens Saturday, was "to find a unique way to connect people to the trees of Longwood."

The exhibit has three tree houses in it. This one was inspired by a cathedral in Norway; the other two are called "Lookout Loft" and "The Birdhouse" (below). All three are grand, maybe bordering on grandiose, especially this one.

As we explored its nooks and carvings, someone in our group jokingly asked where the bathrooms were. Everyone laughed. What about the dishwasher? And where's the fireplace?

The whole exhibit cost $1 million, and Longwood folks say they haven't decided whether to make it permanent. It's not even open yet, but - just a thought - for that amount of money, perhaps Longwood would do well to keep the houses up. I think kids are gonna have a ball with them, though I'm not convinced this experience will translate into a connection with trees.

True, it'll get them inside the garden. Maybe something will rub off or stick in their consciousness so that at some later date, plants and trees will hold an appeal.

Nobody needs prompting to like a tree house. It has universal and timeless appeal. Redman, who grew up in Oklahoma, says his brother and his friends had one and wouldn't let him in. Sounds like he never got over it. "I think I've gotten him back," Redman said gleefully.

The kids in the audience - from Pocopson Elementary School - cheered at the idea of revenge on a sibling.

Now that's appealing.

Every spring brings new lessons in the garden, and sometimes I feel like an old dog who's a slow learner. The impulse to shout DUH is strong, but here goes:

1. When you buy bags of mulch and someone is loading it into the car, you won't know if the bag weighs not 42 lbs. as it's supposed to, but a metric ton. This is because it's been stored outside and got wet. When you get this load home, believe me, you'll develop a hernia trying to get it out of the trunk and where it needs to be. Make sure you get DRY mulch. Ever so much easier.

2. Surgical gloves are a great help for weeding. I went to a hardware store and asked if they had them and the sales guy looked at me funny. "I'm not going to murder anyone," I joked. He just stood there wondering. I bought a box and am tearing through it. Actually, the gloves tear but not right away and because you've bought a box, you have lots more. These are especially helpful when putting down (dry) mulch. Your nice gloves won't get wrecked and you have greater dexterity.

3. Clean up after yourself when you're finished working in the garden, even if you're dead tired. This is sort of like doing the dishes before you go to bed. Nothing more depressing than coming downstairs in the morning to a kitchen full of junk. Last night I forced myself to bag up the weeds, put the tools and wheel barrow away and sweep, sweep, sweep. Even in its weed-filled state, my garden looked sharp this morning and I felt very virtuous.

4. After you've cleaned up the garden, clean yourself up. Don't pad around the house in your muddy clothes. Again, despite your fatigue, you'll be glad you did this. Put fresh clothes on and pour yourself a glass of wine. Feel civilized again. Then take a stroll around the raised beds and pat yourself on the back for being such a hard worker.

5. Tackle one problem area at a time. If you're like me, you're working on one corner of the garden and find yourself moving toward other spots, sometimes in the far reaches. This is bee behavior. Since we're not out there to pollinate, makes more sense to stay in one spot, get the job done, then move on. The results will be more gratifying this way.

6. Don't kill yourself. I'm on my 15th life, having overdone it many times. Lately, because I have to work for my living, I've been doing about two hours a night. It's actually good that it gets dark at that point. Gives me an excuse to stop. You can do more on weekends but during the week, I find two hours is the tipping point. Any more and I'm yawning (more than usual) at my desk the next day.

7. Take a night off. Tonight, for example, I will admire my week's handiwork but refrain from doing any more mulch. Tonight I'll take it easy. Who am I kidding? Tonight I have laundry to do and cooking and all the other stuff I neglected.

8. And while I'm doing all this, my garden is coming alive, which is the whole point. Last night as I wandered around out there, I discovered that my Clematis Montana rubens, after two years of frustrating me and barely hanging on to life, is in bloom. This has got to be the most delicious clematis - three-inch blushing pink blossoms that resemble the wild anemone you find in the woods around here, cascades of them with a thick vanilla scent.

I know the catalogues use all sorts of words to describe a flower's fragrance - spicy, citrusy, etc. - and I had my doubts about this one being like vanilla. But it's true. True and totally divine.

This is a doorway to another time up at Ker-Feal, the Chester Springs weekend retreat that belonged to Albert and Laura Barnes. They bought it in 1941, added two wings to the 1775 fieldstone farmhouse, then filled it with American folk and decorative art and created beautiful gardens throughout the grounds.

Albert Barnes died in a car accident in 1951. Today, the house is shuttered, the grounds overgrown and the future unsure. Ker-Feal is owned by the Barnes Foundation, which has grand - and hard won - plans to move its art gallery from Merion to Center City but no concrete plans to do anything with Ker-Feal.

So it remains apart from the Barnes hoopla and inaccessible to the public except for a horse trail that cuts through the property. (This is actually part of the Horse Shoe Trail that goes from Valley Forge to Harrisburg - and it's the only part of the 138-acre estate that the public can use.)

I was there last week with Ernie Schuyler, curator emeritus of botany at the Academy of Natural Sciences, where he worked for 46 years until retiring in 2000. He's doing a plant inventory, so we walked through the woods looking at what's growing and talking about biodiversity and other fun stuff. He pointed out how many nonnative plants are there now. These were brought in by humans, planted somewhere, not necessarily at Ker-Feal, and ended up here thanks to wind or birds.

For all the talk about native plants these days, it's helpful to walk the walk once in a while. While an untrained eye would never pick this up, with Ernie's help, I saw so much autumn olive and multiflora rose, I couldn't help wondering what the forest would look like in 20 years or so. Some nonnatives he wasn't concerned about - a Japanese holly, for example. But other stuff spreads aggressively, especially in "disturbed" forests, those that were cleared years ago for some purpose and now are growing back.

I'm as susceptible as the next person - including the Barneses - to the charms of some of the nonnatives. It's good to be reminded how well-behaved, useful and beautiful, native plants can be - just in time for all the spring plant sales.

Jeff Gillman was in town this weekend. He's a native of Pughtown, Chester County, and author of "The Truth about Organic Gardening" and "The Truth about Garden Remedies." He came to speak at Bartram's Garden. A handful of us braved the cold temperatures and rainy, gray day to come out and hear his entertaining talk, which began with what is probably the quintessential "take" on this historic garden.

He said he'd been a horticulturist for 20 years, known about John Bartram for 15, and until now had no idea that Bartram's Garden existed. That is stunning. And sad. And tells you the job that faces the new director Louise Turan.

As you can see from this photo, the garden is an evocative place even on a dreary day. It was abloom with redbud, dogwood and cherry trees, azaleas and rhododendrons and drifts of Celandine or wood poppy and golden ragwort. The kitchen garden was coming along, too.

Jeff has a bee in his bonnet about gardeners who "will jump at anything, anything, if it says 'natural,' " thinking that "natural" means it's necessarily safe. "That really bugs me," he said, "and it bugs me a lot."

Pyrethrum, for example, is the most commonly used organic pesticide. Made from crysanthemums, it works - and it works fast. But it kills beneficial insects, as well as pests, and is not completely safe for humans. So be careful, he said.

Jeff had a few tips. For blackspot on roses, he recommended spraying once a week with a mix of one part milk, two parts water. You can use any kind of milk - skim, 1, 2 percent or whole. No one's quite sure why it works and that isn't likely to change soon. Research money for organics is scarce. (Same goes for alternative medicine.)

Just as I'm launching into roses, Jeff opines that we have too much rose worship in this country. The hybrid teas are so temperamental. Best choice? Rosa rugosa, he says. It's tough, it doesn't get blackspot or mildew and it has a lovely fragrance. He acknowledged later that he likes shrub roses as much as anyone, and Knock Outs and Carefrees are good, practical choices.

Compost tea? Jury's still out. Compost is a better way to go, he said, and he's a big fan. Corn gluten meal - great for weed control in the lawn. You'll get 85 percent eradication after two or three years.

One final thought. "Philadelphia is the birthplace of horticulture in the United States," he said. "Appreciate it."

This photo really doesn't do enough credit to Lonicera sempervirens, the native honeysuckle we saw at Bartram's Garden on Sunday. I've seen this plant online and in catalogues but it is far more beautiful in person. You can tell this is the native, not the Japanese, honeysuckle a couple of ways - not just by the flower.

The leaf is very distinctive. It's single, surrounding the stem, and it's a silvery green. It's a much better bet than the ubiquitous Japanese honeysuckle, which was introduced into the U.S. (as so many of the invasives were) in 1806 to be a ground cover in the garden. It's a ground cover, all right, and a tree cover and a garden cover. Birds love it and spread the seeds everywhere. You'll see Japanese honeysuckle in fields and woods, draped over plants and wound around trees.

The native variety, for my money, is not only better behaved but much prettier.

And this is a Celandine or wood poppy, a native plant that grows about a foot high, blooms in spring and spreads quickly. Friends in Fort Washington have it growing in their woods and it's a marvelous sight, but they caution against letting it roam. The yellow flowers do glow nicely, though, and the foliage is fun. They had Celandine poppies mixed in with Virginia bluebells.

I'm thinking this poppy might be a good plant in certain gardens in the city, such as those tight little strips between sidewalk and curb. No place for it to roam there.

This coming weekend is a big one for plant sales. I have at least three I'm considering, all in different parts of the region. Don't clear the shelves before I get there, please.