Lady Banks She Dead

With apologies to Joseph Conrad, I cannibalized his famous Heart of Darkness line when I found the main stem of my beloved Lady Banks' rose was truly brittle,done in by Debbie. I kept hoping I would see a tiny sprig of returning green. After all, the coontie palm came back from the dead as did three of the four camellias. Even the limequat rose from the ashes. But the Lady is not coming back. Her demure, golden glory will not grace the jasmine arch this year. I will miss her.

Florida Fall Where Laziness Finds Respectability

It's still too hot to turn over too much soil. I wander around the HOCS Jardin watching dilettante butterflies dive into masses of golden cosmos and crazed,writhing cardinal vines . Somehow the entire scene reminds me of a concert where the gorgeous groupies are yelling,"Looking at me.Look at me," and the star is deciding who he will favor with his attentions.

Planting an Icon Grads

Three graduates of the first, "Planting an Icon" class, a celebration of seed, soil,sun and God's sustaining spirit. Huge thanks to three wise women!

Ma Nature Belly Laughs

She must laugh out loud when she sees me moping around the garden, gazing sadly at the dead blueberries, the wounded oak tree, and the leafless arbor tilted drunkenly northward. She must hear me when I tell St. Fiacre that I am finally going to throw in the trowel. Sure Tropical Event Debbie did Duval !Sure bad things happened in the garden! But sure too is the return of growth and green. Five weeks after Debbie's dance,the arbor has been straightened through the magic of rebar and is now encircled with the kiwi which may one day bear fuzzy fruit. The oak appears to be sending out tiny leaves on the tip of its gnarled branches. Two dead blueberry bushes and one dead camellia have started a new Hugel. Why can't I ever remember to trust the process ? Why do I still need the bumper sticker that says , " God grant me the serenity to accept the fact I can't see around corners."

A Fine Murder Weapon

I remember an Alfred Hitchcock movie that opens with two FBI agents munching on a leg of lamb. Later, it is revealed that the lamb when frozen was the murder weapon in the crime they are trying to solve. The woman who serves the agents is smiling as they discuss weapon possibilities because she did the evil deed. I thought of this scene today as I harvested potentially lethal spears of burgundy okra. Frozen, they could inflict major damage.I thought I checked the plants yesterday, but perhaps I did not check closely enough. The six inches pods are sharp pointed, curved and inedible.The four inch pods are delicious beyond belief. I ate some four inchers raw, chopped into small succulent pieces sprayed with Bragg's Aminos . Yes,one of the joys of backyard gardening is growing veggies that don't appear on the shelves of even the organic produce purveyors. Burgundy okra is one of those veggies. Plus,a pod might come in handy during a street fight. And,during the political season, who knows when one might break out???

Exodus Redux

Perhaps it is because I am preparing to teach a four week Wednesday night class at Riverside Presbyterian that I have begun to look into my garage sale pond and see my tiny fish as the Israelites. How? First, they are very tribal, the four golds do not intermingle with the mottled whites at all.The golds seem more august, wiser somehow. Are they the Levites?Second, they wait for the "manna" flakes to rain down upon them. I shake the flakes into the pond twice per day.Hummmm, I wonder. Does this cast me in the role of God? I just poured a bucket of mosquito minnows ( aka guppies) into the pond, so tomorrow I guess we'll see if the Two Tribes of Israel have become three or more.

Victoria's Real Secret

I confess. I have a reoccurring fantasy. Like all good English teachers, the fantasy is mythological in nature. It concerns a heroine, a hero, and an impossible task. My Herculean task was to create a working garden fountain for under ten dollars. Having acquired a plastic liner,an entire box load of spaghetti like tubing,two ancient pumps and some colander looking items at a garage sale for exactly ten dollars, I set out to create the magic water feature. Guess what? Forty years dealing with the power and the glory of the semi-colon in no way prepared me for assembling a workable water feature. Enter, the HERO, and not just any hero, but my favorite nature author Bill Belleville, writer of River of Lakes, the lyrical volume that gave me a new vision of the St. Johns River. Bill sat down on the hot pavement, went through the spaghetti mass of tubes and isolated the only working pump. Not my average morning.