Dear Oliver

I did not know Oliver Sacks, well not really. His was the face and voice of one of many of us who attended the New York Fern Society meetings usually held on the first Saturday of each month at the New York Botanical Gardens. I have been attending for about twenty years and Oliver Sacks sat among us fern lovers and plants enthusiasts, sometimes with a notebook in hand and at other times with a cane. He often wore a t-shirt illustrating ferns fronds. During show-and tell he sometimes informed us of upcoming book releases and postings in the New York Times, the New Yorker and other publications. Once we were treated to copies of a draft of an article about Darwin that was to soon after be published.

Oliver Sacks did not know me, well not really. I had addressed the group only briefly on a few occasions over the years and just for a few minutes. Mine was one of the many faces among the group at our monthly meetings, albeit the darkest face and for many years, the youngest face (It is strange to acknowledge one's own aging only after noticing the aging of others). We all strained our ears and necks around poles and potted fern to not miss a word of the many presentations done in power point in the often crowded, dark room as group leaders John Mickel and Robin Moran and various guest speakers presented images and chronicles of expeditions and research. Many were botanists and all were passionate plant lovers skillfully and often humorously displaying their interest in and knowledge of ferns and non-pteridophytes. Carol Gracie was one such presenter. She showcased her book Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast and inspired me to someday publish a book of photographs, observations and ramblings of the naturalist and plant geek that I have developed into. Our annual pot-luck  meeting in December was always in attendance by members of the Society of Botanical Illustrators and by John from the gift shop, with copies of Oliver's books and many treats on ferns, fern allies and others on botanical illustration and plants in general. Oliver was available to autograph copies of his book with his signature green scrawl.

Our Fern Society group was the inspiration for Oliver's book titled Oaxaca Journal.  I began to know him through reading this book, through his articles and posts and later through Hallucinations and lastly through On the Move. The shyness and extroversion that Oliver wrote about in On The Move was not often displayed in our group meetings. When he spoke it was often with much charm, clarity and humor though I rarely saw him interacting with individual group members and he seemed a bit reserved. I remember being a bit shocked to hear him speak of the cover photograph of On The Move where he described himself as "young and sexy". Indeed he is just that. He is quite a stud, clad in leather perched on his BMW.

Oliver Sacks did not know me, not well enough and this I understood as he explained in one of my last encounters with him. I was contemplating graduate studies at Cornell University and mustered up courage to ask him to write me a letter of recommendation. Oliver was very polite and respectfully declined. He explained that he would have to get to know me before he could write such a letter and since we had not worked together and that I was never his student or  assistant it would take a time commitment that would not be organic or natural. I well understood from his writing that he was very selective about how and where his time was dispensed. I was a little peeved but understood. I was developing a bit of an online presence but since I had found out from his assistant years before that Oliver never used the computer, it seemed unlikely that he would ever read my blog posts, or look at my painting or garden design website online. If he did he would at least know a bit about me and on his own time, even if he never really got to know me. How does one know a person and what amount of time amounts to knowing them well? I never know and realize that I never knew people that I thought were close to me, even ones I had lived with for years. After that Saturday meeting Oliver and I exchanged smiles and brief hellos.

On March 7, the last day I saw Oliver, he was accompanied by an assistant who helped him up to the front of the group at our Fern Society meeting. The news of his diagnosis and then impending death was published just days before and he had so bravely come to the meeting to express his gratitude to the group for the many years of inspiration and excitement and to say goodbye. He was that kind of man; humble in his greatness. He explained that he first got an idea of his condition while in attendance at a Fern Society meeting earlier in February and realized that he was not feeling well. A trip to the bathroom indicated that something was seriously wrong and a subsequent visit to the doctor confirmed that his time was very limited. He would spend his last days with family and friends. I think everyone in the room silently cried.

I wrote a letter to Oliver hoping to see him at the following meeting, scheduled for April 11. Oliver never attended the meeting.  He was with his family in England and I decided to make no effort to intrude on his time.

April 10, 2015.

Dear Oliver,

I worked with Catherine to organize the summer fern foray trip to western Massachusetts that we made last June. We looked at ferns in and around the Hawley Bog, High Legends Nature Preserve, the garden of Elsa Bakalar in Heath and the garden of Jeffrey Farrel in Ashfield.  Jeffrey is my mentor and long-time friend and was our guide. He is also the gardener who worked with Elsa for many years and now preserves her work. I garden with him whenever I can and Elsa's old garden is one of my favorite places to visit in New England. A few years before her death the property was sold to a painter named Scott Prior and his wife Nanette Vonnegut, who is also a painter. Scott and Nanette are very friendly people and whenever they were around they would reward Jeffrey and I with lemonade as we weeded in the open garden beds, surrounded by acres of deciduous forest. On a slope just meters from the garden sat a small frog and newt-happy pond in which we cool off. Scott had painted many pictures of his wife and family in and around that little pond that seemed very unused of late. Not many members of the Fern Society group attended that trip to MA which ended with a visit to the birth place of Mary Lyons, located just down the road from Jeffery Farrel's home. I wish you could have been there.

A few days before the trip to MA Scott notified Jeffrey that you were a good friend Nanettes's father, Kurt Vonnegut, and was a regular visitor near the end of his life. How small is the world after all?

I do hope that the doctor's predictions are wrong and that you are able to join us for many more Fern Society meetings. Thank you for educating, entertaining  and inspiring us with your powers of observation, insight, wit and eloquence. It is my wish that you continue to live this extraordinary life you have been gifted and created for yourself and remain surrounded by people you love and who cherish you just as much.

Veronica

Oliver Wolf Sacks died on August 30, 2015.


September 6, 2015


Dear Oliver,

Many Happy Travels!

Veronica

Pollinator and Eco-Habitat Gardens

Scientist and naturalists are concerned about the drastic decrease in the number of monarch butterflies that arrived in Mexico last winter; numbers that have been slowly declining for years but are now at an all-time low. Deforestation for farming, housing and for beautification of highways and public spaces and the prevalence of pesticides are all working together to weaken the immune systems of monarch butterflies, starve them and destroy habitat and host plants for their young. It takes a whole lot of nectar to nourish butterflies as they fly from Canada to Mexico and they need flower motels and other stop-over areas in which to refuel and plants to start their families on along the way. The same food and accommodations are required on their return trip when temperatures warm up in the north. The disruption in this natural phenomenon is significant because insect pollinators play a huge role in our food production. It is also significant since butterflies are considered the most graceful (and the least feared) insects and provide the awesome spectacle of beauty and wonder as mass numbers take flight each year and their breath-taking congregation in Mexico. However, other less adored species of insects, their food supply and host plants are also being similarly affected along with birds and larger animals. Disruptions in the numbers of monarch butterflies signal disruptions in our entire ecosystem and we all should be very concerned.

As a child growing up in Trinidad I witnessed similar migrations of Urania leilus or the daytime -flying swallowtail moth, which we called 'police butterflies'. There would be hundreds of these blue, black, green and white lovely creatures laying with tattered wings on sidewalks and along country roads as swarms made the journey to and from the mainland. Hardly anyone I speak to today recalls these migrations and no one remembers when they ceased.

This Spring I worked with students at PS188 in Coney Island to create a garden to attract butterflies, birds and bees. Our May classes focused on the anatomy of a flower and how insects and birds are attracted to and pollinate them. We made paper flowers detailing both male and female parts. How marvelous is the natural world and how incredible that every shape, color, line, texture and scent of these enticing floral creations is meant to attract pollinators and distributors, including humans to them. It is a simple fact that the main goal of all species is to survive by constant reproduction, even though it may seem like the sole purpose of survival of one species is to nourish another. Our morphology is meant to attract mates and create offspring. I couldn't help but notice the awkward moments amongst students when I talked about the male and female parts of the flower. Fertilization of flowers, even aided by butterflies birds and bees, is sex talk.

In June we briefly covered the life cycle of the butterfly, their quirky habits, their predators and defense mechanisms. We also discussed how to behave around bees, welcome visitors to the garden and the not-so-welcome visitors, wasps. While many wasps are great pollinators, some prey on butterfly larvae. It is not so easy to love wasps.

Our major task was planting hundreds of native plants from Prairie Nursery. Larger pollinator-attracting plants and shrubs were planted earlier and plants from seed were started indoors. All came together to create our brand new pollinator garden. Students read the descriptions of various plants and enjoyed trying to pronounce the scientific names. Some star plants do double and even triple duty, attracting butterflies, hummingbirds, song birds and bees. Liatris ligulistylis, Asclepias tuberosa, Monarda fistulosa and Echinacea purpurea are star attractors.

              Partial pant installation in early June in the small garden with narrow crisscrossing paths

        South side with guys from the YWCA after school program working in the vegetable garden site

Tubular flowers were designed to accommodate the long beaks of hummingbirds who reach deep within to sip tasty nectar. Hummingbirds love red so we planted flycatcher plants and columbine, both orange-red. We also started cypress climber, which have interesting finely cut leaves and bright red tubular flowers (although the vines were stolen when they were about four feet up the wrought iron fence). Other flowering vines like Mina lobata and hyacinth beans were started from seed. Climbing nasturtiums were started under grow lights on the fifth floor and did just as well as ones started in the garden. Salvias are some of my favorite plants and a major attractor of hummingbirds regardless of the color. We have red, pink, blue and purple salvia. Plants for song birds include switchgrass, prairie dropseed, little bluestem and Mexican sunflowers. Ilex verticillata is in place to provide birds with berries in winter. The showy red berry display is also a good reason to include these shrubs. One large tree, a young honeylocust, stands in the garden. As spring proceeded, it became clear how badly it was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. It may be removed and possibly replaced by a shad bush or another shrub that produces berries that both kids and birds will love.

Bees love purple and blue although the centers of many of the flowers they are drawn to are yellow.
Butterflies are not too picky about flower color and will flit about on many although each species has its favorites. We planted Joe pye weed, tons of Echinachea purpurea, E. pallida, E. parodoxa, sedum, rudbeckia, eupatorium, iron weed, culver's root and several species of asters to provide fuel to monarchs during their fall migration to Mexico; Monarda didyma and M. fistolusa, goldenrods, penstemon, liatris, agastache and of course, lots of three species of milkweed. Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweeds. Rattlesnake master was included for its unique foliage and flowers and for the love of saying the names (both scientific and common).

Many gardeners are caught up in the 'Native Garden Wave'. It makes perfect sense to plant native plants to attract insects and birds since native species of insects and birds have adapted and evolved along with their food and habitat plants. Restoring habitats of native plants to increase the population of monarch butterflies is of major priority. However, like New Yorkers, many birds, bees and butterflies have cosmopolitan diets. The success of their intercontinental flights depend in it. Some have adapted to and often delight in foreign cuisines like Peruvian nasturtium and Mexican sunflower which are welcome immigrants to our almost-all-native pollinator garden and are butterfly and hummingbird magnets. Butterflies love zinnias which are also from Mexico. I noticed bees visiting the tiny flowers on the Ilex crenata, a Japanese native. And what American garden does not include a bit from the Chinese? Buddleia davidii is a native of China but very reliable when it comes to attracting butterflies. Simply put, butterflies consider buddleia the bees' knees. Verbenas are a hit with butterflies and tall, airy Verbena bonariensis is from Brazil. Perovskia atriplicifolia or Russian sage attracts bees, bumblebees and hummingbirds. It too has its place in the garden which, though consisting of mostly true natives, is as diverse as the community in which it sits. Go native please, but be practical.

Habitat gardens that look like a little field or like something from a 'Garden by Numbers' box seem to also be the trend. Maybe it is the influence of native plant catalogs and the notion that butterfly gardens should be wild and weedy. This garden is an outdoor classroom to inspire and entertain but gardens are nothing if they are not beautiful and organized, even in their seemingly random states. That said, I design and plant with beauty, order, structure and form in mind so that children and adults can be drawn into the space and be mesmerized by individual plants, plant combinations, colors, shapes and textures, even as they observe caterpillars devouring leaves and entire plants.

Beautiful foreigner that it is, Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' stands out in the garden. The burgundy leaves echo the color of the recently constructed school gymnasium which is very modern compared to the main school building. I intended the garden itself to reflect the sensibility of the new building with neatly laid out gray gravel paths bordered by steel edging. However, this is a dream at the moment since the budget did not allow for the required materials. Shredded bark will have to do until some kind contractor with welding and steel-bending skills will do it, gratis. Cotinus acts as a great structural plant amidst wispy fennel, agastache and steel blue panicum. And yes, I included boxwood. Two rows of little boxwood act as barriers and guide visitors to step onto the narrow paths as they enter the garden from the north or south sides. Boxwood and the three very upright and narrow Ilex crenata 'Sky Pencil' are already hiding places for sparrows and would provide welcome shelters in winter. Little boxwood were also included in the vegetable garden constructed a few feet north of the habitat garden. I never forget that I am planting with children in mind and the evergreen spheres that clipped boxwood create and fuzzy lambs ears are a playful contrast to grasses and masses of prairie natives.

The garden space was meant to utilize rain water runoff from part of the school building and there is a rain water collection area in the vegetable garden too, adding sustainability of both gardens. It is very cool that the architects thought of this! Rain water can be used to water vegetables and minimize water use in the pollinator / habitat garden. Water attracts wildlife and the plan is to invite them to make this garden their home or at least visit often. A tiny, shallow pool can easily be created to attract frogs and possibly dragonflies. This will be a great project to do with the kids. A spot is reserved for a simple birdbath and a nectar feeder for hummingbirds will be installed (Donations Please). Enticing butterflies with a shallow drinking spot and mud puddle are quick and easy projects. With these features in place, PS188 will officially be the site of a Coney Island Eco-Habitat garden. There is a sizable compost area in the vegetable garden. With a few changes like the collection of lunchtime vegetable and fruit scraps for composting and replacing Styrofoam lunch trays with bio-degradable cardboard ones PS188 is on its way to becoming an Eco-School.

We are done planting! Asclepias syriaca and Helenium 'Moerheim beauty' from North Creek Nurseries were last to go in the ground. Three small patches of white, pale and dark blue Siberian irises, a light pink monarda and a few common milkweed made it on a bus trip from Jeffrey Farrell's garden in Massachusetts. They overnighted in Harlem and are now residing in Coney Island. Brilliant red hollyhocks, red velarian and two lovely pink dianthus were picked up on that weekend trip in MA too. Rose malva, pink geranium, blue columbine and a small clump of variegated miscanthus were schlepped from the West 148 Street garden in Harlem. A couple bamboo trellises are still to be installed for Clematis virginiana and a honeysuckle that was labeled as rust orange but is really a pale yellow. Ugh! Do you think hummingbirds will care that the flowers are yellow and not orange?

The garden is mostly green still. Three very sturdy and long-flowering allium 'Globemaster' and Baptista australis of a similar shade of blue are now spent. Columbine, salvia, yarrow, malva and lantanas are blooming while buddleia and coneflowers are gearing up for the show. When students return in September, purple coneflowers, monarda, rudbeckia, goldenrods, ironweed, agastache, eupatorium, liatris, salvia and buddleia will be in bloom; a veritable butterfly smorgasbord. Soon after, asters, heleniums and seedheads of panicum will take over until holly berries appear to hold the fort through winter along with coneflower and monarda seedheads.

Butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and songbirds are our special guests. You too are invited to observe the first batch of caterpillars. The little globes found on dill and bronze fennel were butterfly eggs. So on the last days of school before summer we headed to the garden with hand lens and magnifiers and spotted three little caterpillars with a white band across their middle. They may be larvae of the Black Swallowtail butterfly. As they grow larger we will be a better able to identify them and know what butterflies (or moths) they will morph into.

The garden at PS188 is meant to be a learning environment, an oasis and one more stop over spot for many generations of butterflies and hummingbirds. It is to delight curious children in Coney Island (a community that has grown on me) for generations to come, even the ones starting a new phase in their lives by proudly heading off to middle school. I will miss them. I root for those brainy, zany kids on their journey and for the monarchs too. Rah! Rah! Rah! Cheers!

To Love, To Eat, To Garden

One highlight of 2013 was a visit to North Hill Gardens in Vermont. The carefully crafted landscape is a work of art, love and labor spanning decades of collaboration between Joe Eck and his late partner, Wayne Winterrowd. On that day of my visit with Jeffrey Farrell and my then thirteen-year old son, Julian, it was overcast and leaves were still a bit droopy from earlier showers. Apart from the two shaggy dogs that greeted us at the entrance, we were the only ones in the garden. We were delighted with lush hills and valleys of large and small beds divided by winding paths and steps. We trekked over a small stream and under rustic pergolas. Elegant stewartia flowers littered the ground as we descended one path. We could not walk past the masses of peach, coral and orange primula without being stunned at the unreal blend of colors. Julian befriended a frog sitting among the juncus grass in the rain garden. It sat perfectly still while we goofed around with our hands within and inch of its face and only moved when I tried to grab it for a kiss. Goldfish swam in a barrel near potted plants in the little greenhouse supported on one side by a low stone wall that doubled as a rock garden. Potted agapanthus and blue geraniums bordered a garden room as we circled back to the main residence. Very lovely.

A beautifully laid out vegetable garden sat next to a coop of chickens happily scratching away. I made a note of the tall bamboo trellis as I thought of making similar structures in my own vegetable gardens. I informed Joe Eck of my intention to replicate his trellises just moments into my delight and surprise at finding him at home; a home surrounded by the beautiful gardens.

Joe and Wayne lectured on gardening and landscape design and co-authored several books and publications including "Our Lives in Gardens" and "To Eat". Both books are chronicles of the couple's adventures in gardening with experiments and experiences growing various vegetables, fruits, flowers and shrubs in the often harsh Vermont climate, leaning on each other as they learned and grew together. Their books are filled with lessons on cultivation and preparation of individual vegetables and plants while coated with a bit of history and humor, revealing quirky plant habits. Each food or plant become a star that I now have a greater understanding of and appreciation for. Joe and Wayne were also great examples in subsistence living, producing their own food from the land, even raising cattle and pigs. Theirs was a partnership of hard work and good living and their personal stories make the books a joy to read. How fortunate to have  a partner to share a passion for gardening, teaching, design, good food, travel and a passion for each other. I see other partnerships, like Jeffrey Farrell and Bruno, Leslie Land and Bill and I imagined that one day I too could find a life partner who shares and bolsters my passions for horticulture, and I his, whatever he is into.

The visit to North Hill coincided with the design and installation of my very first edible garden. As a child I weeded and harvested pigeon peas, sorrel (Hibiscus sabradiffa) and passion fruits in gardens round my parents' home. The yard was always full of peppers, limes, Spanish thyme and shadow beni (Eryngium foetidum); lots of root crops like dasheen (root of an edible velvet-leafed alocasia, whose leaves are super delicious and rich in iron), casssava (yucca ) and yams. There were almost always avocado and pawpaw trees and bunches of green bananas waiting to be picked one 'hand' at a time, boiled and eaten like potatoes in soups or with salted codfish. Petite bananaquit birds loved pecking before the 'figs' (as we Trinbagonians call bananas) turned yellow.

Over the past twenty years I have worked alongside Jeffrey Farrel in his garden, Elsa Bakalar's garden and other ornamental and vegetable gardens in Massachusetts. Jeff and Bruno, have spoiled me with their simple meals made with vegetables and herbs, often pulled from their garden minutes before reaching the table. So good!

                                             Rhubarb in Jeff's and Bruno's vegetable garden


Yet, growing food from seed and creating a vegetable garden from scratch was truly new territory. With a limited budget and no professional crew to construct and layout the beds, I became a contractor. I instructed three (often reluctant) teens to help with the construction of twenty raised cedar beds for a vegetable garden at P. S. 329 in Coney Island. Leveling the ground and lining up all the beds required patience and lots of elbow grease. Several pairs of hands were needed to haul twenty-six yards of soil from the sidewalk, over the fence and into the planting area to be later added to the beds. It was a tremendous and arduous task and I think my body is still recovering from the rigor of it all.

A clearly delineated lawn area was created between a long shade border against the school building and the vegetable beds. I imagine one day the lawn will be laid out with cloth-covered tables and dozens of children will be serving each other and enjoying their harvest. That border was filled with shrubs and perennials to be used as teaching aids and to add winter interest.  Many of those shrubs, hostas, ferns and Ajuga reptans were schlepped  from the garden near my home in Harlem. Dozens of earthworms were also dug up and relocated on the two-hour trip by train to Coney Island. They were a welcome addition since salt water from Hurricane Sandy wiped out the earthworm population. The kids added them to the soil one at a time, squealing all the while. Garden beds closest to the sidewalk contained native and pollinator-attracting plants like agastache, salvia, rudbeckia, liatris, zinnia, marigolds and nasturtiums and others to be used in basic plant science and Botanical Latin lessons. The plan was to inspire kids to love words along with gardening with plant names like Pulmonaria saccharata, Hydrangea macrophylla and Gleditsia triacanthos (two mature trees grow on each end of the long garden space). Another area was reserved for a three-bin compost, to be built later and surrounded by bark mulch that was to also line the paths between the beds.

    Pizza-shaped herb beds sit between rows of longer beds

Planting started late, about a month later than I would have liked but it was imperative to have the permanent structures laid out well, an often overlooked or trivial element in many school and community gardens.

                                                        Joe Eck-inspired trellis at far end

It is very gratifying to grow food that can be eaten raw or cooked within minutes after picking; food grown from carefully selected seeds or plugs and in soil that it tilled and modified by your own hand. It is also very rewarding to feed the ones you love using fresh, wholesome ingredients, knowing that you are present and monitoring their growth from seed to the table. I must admit that I become very excited about observing the various stages from seed to fruiting, sniffing, pinching and tasting along the way. As quickly as bean vines scrambled up the bamboo tee pees it became clear why children flourish from observing and participating in growing food. A seed, some soil and sunlight and what unfolds into tasty good things to eat is science and magic. Birds loved the baby spinach, mesclun mixes and munched on the leaves of radishes, Brussels sprouts and beets. Strawberries and blueberries were devoured by wildlife and although I never saw them, I was told that raccoons visited regularly after sunset. It was all alright. There was food for everyone. Just as the lawn seeds began to sprout, pretty yellow flowers covered the zucchini and squash, tomatoes started blushing and eggplants grew long and glossy, I left that garden to start another at a school just a few blocks away.

I recently attended classes in teaching gardening and cooking at the Edible Schoolyard. The programs are models and great examples of what can be achieved when staff and administration work together to improve the quality of education and overall health of children through interaction with nature. There you will find a dedicated group of garden and cooking instructors working in an awesome garden and state-of the-art kitchen. I am a novice and I gather knowledge from the professionals at the Edible Schoolyard to master the art of educating children at P.S.188. Under a couple of four-foot grow lights we started from seed various types of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, zucchini, beets, corn, cucumbers and okra. Oregano, bunching onions and basil were started under lights in my bedroom. We also sowed seeds of hyacinth beans, Mina lobata, marigolds, lots of nasturtiums and the very sensitive sensitive plant. Can't wait to taste our heirloom tomatoes and have kids create salads that include nasturtium and marigold flowers.

             Tomatoes, Corn, Peppers, Okra and Oregano started from seeds under grow lights

 A gardener's hands

 Seemingly wild and wickedly wonderful flowers in Jeff's garden

Snapdragons growing happily with kale

                                                                      Jeff in his beautiful garden

I am constantly gobbling up information from vegetable garden books, catalogs and vegetable garden bloggers. With zany, brainy children I am planting up a storm, gaining experience as a vegetable gardener and enjoying teaching. Whoohoo! Soon I will plant my very own vegetable garden, one in which I will even tackle growing asparagus and artichokes. I also continue to rely heavily on words of wisdom from garden experts like Jeffrey Farrell, Wayne Winterrowd and Joe Eck. They have given me much to emulate and much to admire. I owe them gratitude and many, many thanks.

Vie à La Campagne; In Gardens with Jeff & Bruno

            

I owe much of my love for gardening to Jeffrey Farrell. I am also aware of how my lifestyle has been influenced by both him and his partner, Bruno. They live in the small town of Ashfield, Massachusetts, which lies about forty minutes from Northampton and the five-college area at the foothills of the Berkshires and are part of a community of liberals, intellectuals, writers, painters, professionals and simple country folk. Many of them are immigrants to this country or ex-city folks. I was first introduced to Jeff and Bruno while visiting with my then boyfriend, Marc, about twenty years ago. Since then they have become my very close friends.

                                                   Cornus kousa outside the kitchen window


Theirs is a modest house that is both rustic and modern. Wooden with two floors and large windows, it sits on three acres of land that slopes downhill towards flower and vegetable gardens and separated by massive leaves of Petasites from a small pond outlined in yellow-flowering irises. In the winter their bedroom is flooded with light and crowded with overwintering annuals, orchids and succulents while the cellar houses numerous potted salvias, dahlias and an assortment of plants that may survive the New York winter. While Jeff tends the animals and gardens Bruno has undertaken the responsibility of organizing the indoor living space, constantly redesigning and tweaking each room to create uncluttered and simple environments with very carefully selected pieces of furniture, art and other useful and beautiful things. Work of local artists can be found all around. The most recent upgrade is a sleek long rectangular stone sink that sat in some one's yard for about twenty years before catching Bruno's eye. Like the collection of teapots, shelves and everything else in the kitchen and dining area, the sink is modern and elegant.

Jeff and Bruno live in a house without cell phones or television and the spotty internet connection does not inspire the use of a computer. When indoors, we read, listen to MPR or jazz, (I came to love Miles, Nina and Bill T. Jones there) and have long talks over dinner. Those guys make the most amazingly simple and delicious meals, partly because a lot of the ingredients come from their own garden just minutes before they reach the pot or table. Also, Jeff was the original owner and chef of Phez in Northampton. They are vegetarians for the most part and prepare meals that make you wonder why anyone would ever consider eating bacon. At the end of each growing season excess tomatoes and rhubarb are frozen, bottled or given to lucky neighbors or visiting city folk. Dessert with raspberries or blueberries and wine follow as the evening ends with most or all of us
reading.

 

                                                                           Asparagus

It is a nine to five household: 9:00pm to bed and 5:00am to wake, tend to the sheep, donkey and chickens, which are never eaten (at least not by humans), finish reading yesterday's newspaper, browse through plant and seed catalogs then start the day's gardening chores.

Jeff is one of the few people I know who effortlessly completes each NY Times Sunday crossword. I have learned that I will never beat him at Scrabble or Boggle or know all he does about art and history. I hope that maybe one day I will be as knowledgeable as he is about plants and gardening.
I often call him up on the phone to pick his brain about some plant, tree or the other or with concerns about clients or aspects of a particular gardening project. He has been gardening professionally for a long time and there is no garden question he cannot answer. I have had the privilege to work with him maintaining the original plantings in the beautiful garden of Elsa Bakalar, the renowned garden designer and writer. As his assistant in gardens throughout Ashfield and neighboring towns, I'm always eager to learn all I could while enjoying every minute of the sometimes back-breaking work.  On many occasions I've later worked out the kinks in my muscles with walks and yoga with Bruno.

                         Jeff working in Elsa's Garden with my Julian somewhere, hauling off weeds


Having spent much of my life in the tropics, the business of planting bulbs in the spring, knowing the difference between annuals and perennials and how to overwinter plants were all foreign notions to me until I met Jeff. "Salvia" was never part of my vocabulary and I learned to quiet my racing heart after years of being mesmerized by the hues of 'Black and Blue' and the host of other salvias, flitterlaria, flowering onions, poppies, various lilies and uncommon flowering bulbs that parade through the gardens. I discovered how lovely the deadly caster bean plant can be in the mixed border and the difference between Angelica archangelica and the poisonous giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum), both very stately and lovely.

                                                   Overwinterers: Agapanthus, Salvia, Musa

                                                      Hummingbirds love Salvia and so do I

                                Jeff and Bruno at  the wedding of Andy and Claire on Mt. Greylock

                                                     Sea of Petasites flowing into the pond


Before meeting Jeff and Bruno I had seen photos of poppies but could not have imagined that they would be so delicate and wondrously elegant. Crocosmia lucifer, Oh my! What a striking red it is, rivaling the brightest of tropical Hibiscus and Chakonia. I had never ripped a piece of already-peeling white bark off birch or wondered why the aspen quakes. Until those trips to Ashfield I had only dreamed of fall coloring and I quickly grew to understand why the "Tree Peepers" flock to New England year after year.

 

                                                 New fence for vegetable and flower garden


In the summer we go to bed with the sounds to frogs chirping and awake to birds singing. The boys find garden snakes, newts, frogs and salamanders and have taken turns chasing the sheep and riding Diego, the donkey. We've hiked to waterfalls and to the Buddhist colony nearby. Swam in the lake, rowed the canoes and ridden the horses in the field with an old barn at the foot of the hill near the house. We would bar-b-q and play bocce until it was too dark to see the balls. I've attempted to speak a few words of French at Bruno's Parle Vous brunches. We've rolled around in the grass at the birthplace of Mary Lyons. So, many stories, laughs and good memories, many including our friend, Michael 'Pocahanthus' P. (Pocahanthus for the bareback, bare butt riding scene as he and horse gradually disappeared into the pond). In the winter it is wonderful to wake up with the sky turning from pthalo to cerulean behind the infinitely crisscrossing frames of bare branches and sit by the fire watching cardinals and woodpeckers on massive maples and oaks or clustering around feeders. With the boys we've gone skating on the Ashfield lake where Bruno is fond of swimming, where my boys learned to swim and where Jeff, at the age of sixty-plus, still does back flips off the diving board. We've gone flying over the hill on sleds and bruised our tailbones down the golf course. The boys always seem to wake up early and get wet or covered in snow or mud before I roll out of bed for my coffee made by Jeff and later, tea, with Bruno of course. We've gone for walks through snow-covered woods with only the light of the moon. It is there, surrounded by woods and mountains that I often find inspiration for my paintings. It was there, while walking along the road between Jeff's and Bruno's house and Shelburne Falls that Marc proposed. It was there, on one of those trips in 1996 that we discovered a little cabin on fourteen acres of land, just a mile away, jumped at the opportunity and bought it a few weeks later. Orion was five months old and wriggled in my arms like a fat earthworm all through the closing.

When I am there in the house or gardens or walking along the gravel roads, or in the car moving through rolling countryside spotted with old barns, vast fields and occasional deer and turkey under perfect clouds I become very aware of how nature, open spaces and beautiful scenery affect how we feel and the ways I desire to grow, and improve my life. Yeah, New York City is a fabulous place to call home but there are other, different and equally excellent places where the living is good. Trips out of  the city to the countryside are rejuvenating and restore a sense of priority and balance. Somehow nature has a way of strengthening my faith that we are all striving towards living more simply and honestly and to evolve into better human beings or into a less destructive and more mindful species. Being in the countryside reminds me that what is important is living my life with integrity and without fear while striving towards making a positive impact with my very existence; doing away with the unnecessary or negative, living with passion and compassion and nurturing the people I love are the things that matter. Or maybe it is just the sight of two large sheep and a donkey peacefully walking side by side as they make their way up the gravel road to their home after deciding that were done grazing in the field with the old barn (that houses Blackie, a stray cat who looks like my GiGi), while Jeff naps on the sofa, blanketed in the NY Times and one of many cats, that inspires smiles or calm and something kind of wholesome and wonderful.

I look forward to trips to gardens and that house in the country. The Siberian irises, bee balm, lady's mantle, geraniums, lily-of-the-valley and lamb's ears currently growing in the garden on West 148th Street in New York originally grew in Jeff's garden or in my garden on East Buckland Road. When I tend them I am sometimes transported to those places hundreds of miles away. It is my hope that I can return the favor and inspire Bruno to call asking how to cook some Trinidadian dish that I once prepared there. Or for Jeff to ask for a plant, seed or sapling that he does not already grow himself. Or have him call me up to ask about the growing requirements of a plant or two. His asking will of course be the greatest compliment any gardener can ever receive.