A moment of silence

I've been without words for a while but couldn't let another day go without this.
The plants at my neighborhood shopping center were changed out a week or so ago.
I noticed the change immediately. I didn't show up at 7 to get what I wanted. I didn't go at all.
Gosh only knows how many ajuga and lamium bit the dust. The thought makes me sad in my heart.
I would like to have a moment of silence for our rooted friends, who lost their lives for no good reason.
I can only hope they grow in debri and trash, because that's where they are now residing.

I've been thinking that, come fall, i may write the landscaping company and offer them lunch after they have made the change out so I can pilfer through the dump truck and see what I can save.
Just thinking about it.

One of my daughters has taken a new interest in plants and it has been interesting to hear her tell of  creating her own outside grow space. Another daughter just put in her  veggie garden and added a soaker hose that is connected to a rain barrel. I think that is neat.

I recall putting a shout out for iris and liripe last year to neighborhood elists, and so I did the same this year with rocks. I am trying to finish up some beds for a friend before her parents come into town. I offered iris in exchange and got a few takers. A friend at work brought me more than the Cabrio could hold almost, but I'm still about 15 short.  Last year i was bordering with liripe. Maybe i need something more certain and stable in my hands this year. I like how they look, anyway.

Exchanging in this way feels comfortable and like a good thing.

The church yard is doing really well. This year, I've hidden 2 tomatoes, 2 eggplant and one pepper amongst the guara and daisies and pincushion plants. We'll see if we get to donate any food from them to Interfaith food shuttle. I sure hope so. It doesn't take much space to grow produce.

The periwinkle is slow going, but has doubled since last year, so i hope next year it won't look like a bad hair day out there around the pine trees. I've got 3 varieties going; intertwined might look interesting. At any rate, it would be more in keeping with life. We'll see.

Slower season is creeping in here at work church. Hope i can get some 'get ready' tasks done so fall won't be so hectic. Hope i can write more, too. Haven't done more than a grocery list in a while.

Hug someone today and say hello to a plant that catches your eye- both of those make a difference.

Returning to the scene of the crime

Last night I returned to the scene of the crime. My wilderness daughter and I walked over to the shopping center to meet friends, and lo! Suddenly, there we were at the very scene. The elephant ear bed. All signs of life had been removed. The dirt lay bare. No yellow crime scene tape, either.

We stood together, me glad in my heart that my story was now proven true that the landscapers were due to come when I thought they were, and sad in my heart that the cousins of the plants I had saved were now. gone.

I looked around and all of the pots had been brutally emptied, their summer arrangements replaced with shrubs. How bland, I thought.


" Okay, mom. It's time to let it go" my daughter said. She gently pulled me away.

There wasn't a red rose in sight to leave on the grave.

It was good while it lasted

I am a spring/summer church chick. Cold weather sends me into hibernation.
I search out things to look forward to that can string me through the cold months.
Planting bulbs, getting the free shopping center plants, making pomegranate ahm, making soup for church. Those things usually take me through February.
Last week, I tried to plant bulbs at church but it was too warm for the bulbs to hit the dirt, so I still have that to look forward to, and I have my own to add to and two friends’ yards as well.

The free plant day came up yesterday. I've been looking forward to it for weeks, watching and mentally picking out what I need for this yard or that. You’d think the planters held chocolate instead of dirt.

Yesterday, right in the middle of a quarterly staff planning day, I got the call. THE CALL.
“The truck is here!! They are here!! Come right over” said my contact. The timing was very unusual because usually the landscapers come at the crack of dawn, not during lunch rush hour. I dreaded digging amongst folks enjoying pizza, reubans or nachos, but one must do what one must do sometimes. This was one of those times.

I excused myself from the meeting, determined to dig fast and get back quick as a wink.
I met the friend/contact at her store, dug up what she wanted and what her boss wanted. I rode around and pried up the plants I needed for church and yards, then took a last drive around the shopping center to see if I forgot anything. I saw the elephant ears waving at me from afar and I pulled up and got out with my trowel. Note: Never fall for an elephant’s ears' wave.

I loosened the dirt around one of the waving plants and heard a voice behind me. “Are you with the landscapers?”
“No” I stood up and brushed the dirt off of the plant. A woman in an SUV had pulled up beside the curb. She held her phone to her ear.
“Who are you with?”
I smiled and said, “just me”
“I’m calling security.” The next few minutes are an exaggerated blur.
Another car pulled up, an officered police person came walking over, and a plain-clothed security officer also walked over.

I told my story to the woman, explaining that I had permission, and how I had permission and that if it was no longer okay for me to save these plants that were about to be dug up and abandoned in the landfill, then I’d release them back into her ill care.

She understood what had happened and let me know that the policy was now changed (now being the target word here,) and no one could have them but the landscapers. The reapers. The grim reapers.

I explained that the landscapers were glad to let me dig because it meant less work for them, but she held tight. We both waved off the FBI and the security guards. I convinced the police to go back to chasing bank robbers, and I begged the state trooper to look for speeders on the interstate. Finally, they left.

I was resigned to the fact that the glory days of collecting discarded plants was over. I wept inside, thinking of the orphans that were about to hit the landfill. I grieved. My heart was sad. The first woman felt my heartache and put her arm around me. “ If they are really really strong, they’ll make it no matter where they end up.”
I shook my head and blew my nose.

The second car took my attention. It contained a hormone depleted, slightly thinning but dyed blonde haired woman who had surely mistaken a bottle of rancid perfume for lotion. It was obvious she had virtually dipped herself into it several times. Her body gave off waves of the stuff much like a car hood does heat.She looked wavy.

She was dressed in a shirt and skirt combo that I can only guess was a‘wanna-be Chico outfit mixed with a slather of American Eagle for the aged’. Her fashion statement was held together with a big black hippo tongue, or maybe it was a belt. The buckle was acrylic. gold-dipped plastic.

Her bright purple nails were a hair longer than her fangs, which had obviously been overwhitened, or maybe she swished with Clorox when she brushed. She must have had on spandex hose with tummy tighteners because her legs looked human, but her navel was popping up through her cleavage. She wore heels. I think. I had never seen shoes quite like that before. They were thick 4”platforms with skinny 3”heels coming out the bottom. They matched her nail color. Her neck and limbs dripped gold. Please don’t make me describe her face. I need to sleep at night.

She stepped out of the vehicle and towered over me. She pulled a megaphone out of the car and began yelling sharp pointed words at me. Wait. That wasn’t a megaphone. I think it was her lipgloss- covered botoxed lips.

She made it clear to me that I was a heinous criminal, foraging and stealing plants from her.
I explained that I had been invited to do so by the landscapers and the store. She wondered why I came at this particular time and day and I told her about the letter letting store owners know when the plant change out was coming. I told her of the call I got telling me they were here now. The woman grew zits as she threw angry words at me. In the midst of my fright and horror, I was somehow comforted to see that she was in some way, human after all.

The woman spoke so hard that the first woman began crying, sobbing, “It wasn’t her, it was me. Me! I tell you. Please, for Gosh sakes, let her go!” The crying woman then looked at me and said, “Run, run as far away as you can and don’t stop running until you can’t run anymore!” She backed up and inserted herself into her car.

The screaming life-crisis continued telling me how stupid I had been to believe the store owner regarding plants outside the store. I broke. I finally cracked in half and broke.
“But I’m a church secretary, for God’s sake! Why would I be digging up plants in the middle of the day for anyone to see if I was stealing them?” Oh, where is a prozac when you really need one? I could have tossed it down her megaphone mouth and we both would have felt a ton better. But, nay. Such luck was nowhere to be found.

She suddenly stopped making noise. The glare was there, but I had side stepped just out of the glare -ray field, so I wasn’t too scorched.

“ Do you want me to return them? I’ll gladly put them back, but they will be taken away anyway.”
“ What have you taken?” she seethed.
“ Well, ferns and these elephant ears.” The question was moot as the fern was sticking out of my side window and the elephant ears were still waving at me from the car. They looked perky and ready for a roadtrip.
“No. Enjoy them.” She said. “And don’t come back”
I opened my car door and whispered to the elephant ears that were hogging the driver’s seat, “scoot over”. I got in and left. The stowaway caladiums in the trunk were cheering as I pulled out. “We’re saved!!! Woo Hoo!!”

It’s funny in a not funny way how in the span of a few seconds one can be convinced they are indeed criminal, evil, vile and bad bad bad. I held that sense all the rest of the day.

I returned to work, shook the dirt out of my hair and threw a sweater on over my now dirty shirt. I rejoined the staff planning, but trembled all afternoon. I kept looking for a SWAT van to pull up. It never happened.

I was in need of comfort, clarity, and I needed reminding that I had followed advice and information as I knew it. I needed to know I was not as bad as I felt and that I could indeed continue to be allowed to live on the planet. Surely, no church would want the likes of an accused plant thief working in their building and for that matter what church would want one of those as a member? My imagination drank in the adrenaline from the unfortunate experience and kept on with the thoughts that I would be asked to move out of my townhouse because my landlord would learn of my mishap, and my children would sharply turn away from me, I would lose all of my framily as well.Why, I was sure my kitties would hiss when I returned home later. I was a mess.

After the meeting, my boss asked how it went and I whispered, "Mother Mary, forgive me, for I have sinned. It's been a while since my last confession."
He looked around the room, then at me, and said, "Wrong religion, what happened?"
I said,"I got in trouble." The word "trouble" drew attention and a few of my co workers came over to hear the story. I had not gotten very far into the tale when the reactions began. Rejection wasn’t in the mix, though. No. It started with sniffs, then lowered heads and finally outright laughter. “When you call me tonight, give me a few minutes to laugh, and then I’ll come bail you out.”

What is wrong with these people, I thought. Where was the shun? ...the rejection, the disappointment in my obvious flaw of character? Were these things hidden in their laughter? It didn’t seem so, and it left me confused.

I called my oldest daughter and she had no reaction at all. She suggested without hesitation that perhaps the old biddy had the misfortune of sitting on something sharp, or maybe she had woken up on the wrong side of the plastic surgery. or maybe she needed to be pinched to bring her back to reality.
Reality. That is what was missing in my thinking.

I had an intense need to rid my car of the “hot” rooted victims. I gave away some of the goodies before I left the building to an assistance person who would have rather had food, but seemed amazingly satisfied with a fern.

I drove by a friend’s house- someone who regularly invites me to dig plants from her yard, and I did a drive-by drop off.

The only plants left were ferns for a friend, and caladiums for church.

I decided that what I needed was a visit with our framily friends who have a luscious 3 ½ year old and a 4 month old. Some kid- time might help me find my way back to steady.
I drove my -now full of dirt car- over and skatted up the front walk to the front door. There was a sign on the door that read, “We love convicts. Herb thieves welcome here”
Funny. Very funny. How did they know?

I entered and was met by my 3 year old friend who hugged me tight. Just what I needed and wanted. Just what I needed to remind me I was good of heart, okay. He hugged hugged hugged me and said in my ear- “ Menandy, I luv u even if you are a fugitive”

He took me by the hand and led me to the kitchen where my oldest daughter was trying to hold her mouth shut with both hands, unsuccessfully. Across the room my little friend's mom was shaking with laughter, unable to look at me for fear she wouldn’t make it to the bathroom in time, and his dad was frantically stirring a pot of empty spaghetti water. Somehow, the laughter among people I have come to trust helped me think more realistically.

After that, I went to a friend’s house and planted the ferns in her yard. It was dark by then, so the sense of sneaky crime had crept back into my head. There I was, hunched over the dirt digging a hole like a murderer digs a hole for his victim. I stopped and said into the dark,"Oh Lordy." I quickly finished putting the illegally adopted ferns to bed, then I went inside and spilled out my story.
No one there seemed to see me as a rotten crook, either. My teen friend was intently typing on her laptop, appearing to be working hard on homework, though i suspect she may have stumbled into her facebook account. She never looked up, but said, " You didn't do anything wrong." It felt like a line on a chinese fortune cookie. I wanted to believe it.
I stayed a while, grabbed some much needed hugs and headed home.

My cats were glad to see me. My landlord had not called or left me a notice. I began to think that maybe, like Alexander, I had just had a few minutes of a no good very bad day. So I went to bed.

It was good while it lasted, and the plants that came home with me last Spring and yesterday, will have chances to live and thrive. I think that’s as good as it gets.

As for the irate woman? I think she just needs a good bite of chocolate, and maybe if she’d unsproing herself from spandex and pointy high heels, she may see things a little differently.
I’m not planning on finding out, though.

The gardening snowball effect continued

This entry is prefaced by the previous 3 or 4 entries - starting with October's entry. Plant self-revelations. They go together, I think.

Since the shopping center fun (I prefer to call that day operation Plant Rescue), I have been on a mission to find and trade plants. Here are some of those examples-

I needed Liripe, bigger than I already had, for the CG Community garden. Anna had some growing on its own in an isolated part of the yard. I didn't ask if there was a behavioral reason for the separation from the other liripe in her yard, i just took my pitchfork and dug it up. That's called unconditonal liripe love. She showed me her backyard and mentioned she wanted to make a daylilly/iris prayer garden. Later, I dug up some irises, and answered the response on a neighborhood elist request for anyone needing iris/daff/daylilly thinning and I dug up some lilies. Then I visited Julia's garden and she had a spare lenten rose. The trade made Anna happy, and the CG look a lot better.

Someone at home church was looking for some irises, and was lamenting about how hard it is to keep the wild ferns down in their yard. A few days later, the trade took place. I brought the iris, he brought the ferns.

A friend from work church picked up on the planting energy, and wanted some iris and periwinkle. I went by and it was really fun to do a little weeding and pet her dog/child and visit. I could see their energy picking up. They are going gung ho on the yard now. I hope to see their progress tomorry. If not progress, then at least hugs.

I saw on the elist where someone had done their yard over and had an overage of sod. The CG yard has a few tire ruts in it, so i went and filled my trunk with rolls of sod. After, I drove by home church and passed by a friend from church. Possessed with the excitement of such a good find, I blurted out, " Only because you know and love me- do you need any sod?" Now, this is not exactly the greeting one would expect, so she and her partner sort of stopped and stared at me a minute, as if I had just spoken Greek. I think they were expecting me to say, " Hi! glad to see you!" and were trying to make my " Hi! do you need any sod?" sound like the greeting they were expecting. Then, the magic of the gardenese kicked in. " Well, actually yes. we DO need some sod." They followed me over to the alley way where the free leftover sod sat and they were thrilled but had no bags. NO worries!! I am now manufacturing trash bags in my trunk. We loaded her up with a bag of irises from my backseat as well!!

Yesterday I was dropping off a church key to my oldest daughter. In the ten seconds it took to give her the envelope, I noticed 3 small ferns growing along her front wall.... Let's just say they aren't there now. I don't really recall getting the pitchfork out of my trunk.

Today,I was walking through a parkinglot, and I found a random elephant ear plant that was so overflowing its small bed, it was sending a few ears out and over into the drain. I pulled one up and brought it home. Yes, today I adopted a purple elephant ear. People in the parking lot watched me and probably wished they knew why in the world would I rescue a strange elephant ear. Just because I could, that's why.

Yes, the gardening snowball effect is alive and well. I need a plant, you have one. I have one, you need one. I need to plant some. You need to see some growing. We talk and build community with people and nature ....

Today at the CG, I looked over all the plants I've put in this season and came up with this.
The garden has come from 15 different sources- yards- shopping centers-friends' plots- 15.
Wow. I think I've put a village in my friend's yard.

My other boss at work wants me to continue the planting. I guess an overzealous church secretary-turned-planter is cheaper than using a "real"landscaper; he's on the train, the wagon, the wheelbarrow. He wants to see if we can convert pinestraw beds into sustainable gardens. I'm in baby, plus, this should make the stewards of the earth committee happy.

I ordered a few plants to get us started, and I'm looking for more. Today, after pulling some periwinkle and digging more irises at my place, I put them in the ground at work church. Next spring, if they live, we'll be on the road to creating color on the church grounds. I'm excited.

My angel friend on the phone tonight also said, "OMG. One day , we will pull up and the church will be gone. hidden away like a secret garden" or something like that. She's really a little concerned that a forest might move in on the root tails of my periwinkle. She's also wondering if these bulbs and plants don't grow, well, maybe I'll need therapuke in a big big way.

Only the shadow knows. I can tell you one thing, though. She, and the other staff may think I'm a little over the topsoil on this gardening thing, but it has created a really nice connection and sense of community not to mention the cheap entertainment.

I still worry a bit about my car becoming a terrarium. I won't be surprised if I climb in to drive one day and see sprouts. Plants are supposed to increase the air quality, right?

The gardening snowball effect- shopping center plant rescue

I was talking tonight with an angel friend of mine and sharing this update with her, and i randomly said, "Maybe this gardening thing is really some sort of therapy for me." She, being wise and NOT ME, said, "Ya think?"

The community garden (CG)benefited greatly from the shopping center haul. I mentioned this upcoming event in a previous blog and I am here to say that the experience has created a snowball effect in my gardening. I am NOT a landscaper. I am a planter. i plant. I weed. I get plants and plant them. That's it. No guarantees. This task of planting hurts my back, but it heals my heart. Yoga helps the back, so it all balances out.


I mentioned an important date. The day the landscapers change out the plants at the shopping center. The day came.

I was at the shopping center at 7am. No landscapers. I ordered breakfast in the restaurant where the manager first told me about the changing of the plants. Still no trucks. There I sat in my work clothes, in wait. Suddenly, one, then two, then several more trucks began to pull into the center parking lot. Men got out. Men pulled plants out of pots. They were at the other end of the lot from where I was, and time was short. I drove over and asked if they were pulling plants today and they said, yes. I asked what would happen to the plants, and they said they were dumping them in the truck and carting them off. I asked if I could have them when they were thrown away and they said, what did I want? I said, caladiums and ferns. They said, with a handfull of irritation in their voices that it would be a while before they got to those. Then,.....then....I said the magic words. "Well, actually, I have a pitchfork in the trunk of my car, I can dig them myself."

You would have thought I was the dentist saying, "No cavities!"

The men finally smiled at me and said with a little bit of caffeinated enthusiasm" Have at it, take what you want! It's less work for us!! Have at it sister!!"

I drove back to the restaurant where the staff was waiting for the trucks, and held up my pitchfork. "He said we could DIG!!" Well, they pulled boxes out of mid air and I shared my pitchfork and, like Edward Scissorhands, we cleaned out those pots in seconds. The manager asked for my information so she could call me in the spring because it was so much fun.

I toured the rest of the center and by 8:30, I had a literal jungle residing in my car. My little VW cabrio had elephant ears hanging out the window, ferns, caladiums, two trees that looked like lantana, and multiple mystery plants stuffed in every spare corner. There were leaves and stems dragging the street like when you close your coat in the car door. It was Fabulous, I tell you. A traveling nursery. With the radio blaring, I sounded like a modern day icecream truck only with plants.

Well, my boss shopped from the car, as did co workers. Several people wondered how I would ever get the dirt out, but i wasn't worried. Even though I had put the goodies in bags, the dirt escaped with fervor. There were inches of dirt in the seat, on the dash, and on the floor. My only concern was knowing my convertible top had a leak, and if we had rain before I could clear out my inventory, well, I admit I was a little concerned about rooting plants in the floorboards of my vehicle. A novel idea, but not one I really wanted to see up close and personal.

In two days' time, the plants were transferred to new dirt. I have maybe a hundred caladium bulbs sleeping on newspaper in my green room. along with a tree hoping to live long enough for me to give it to one of my daughters for Christmas. The rest are in the community garden, my gardenette, and at co workers' houses, and home church friends' houses. Isn't that neat?

The gift that keeps on giving. Dirty, in a good way. Something happened that day, coupled with the growing pleasure of working the community garden, I was finding community through sharing plants, and I was feeding my problem solving hankering by figuring out how to find plants that I needed and connecting the needs of others - a plant switchboard sort of. It became theraputic for me.

Usually, I refer to therapy to therapuke because if you are really doing the hard work therapy requires, it feels puky. But this therapy had no puke in it. Just dirt.

Community Garden

I sense a slow but steady shift these days towards more versatile use of community. Sustainable communities, building communities, community watch.... yadayadayada.

When I was married,we had a half acre back yard that was largely used for gardening. Fruits, veggies, an orchard. I think I've mentioned that here before. There are things I miss and don't miss about those days, but one especially good use of that space was to offer our goods to the community.

Now, a few years later, I am in a rented townhouse with a minute border of viable planting space, so the days of big gardening are over for me.

I have, however, found a friend who wants to have a garden, or at least wants to have living things in her yard, but doesn't have the steady interest to make it happen, so she's let me pretend her yard is my canvas and I've turned her front yard into a community garden of sorts.

Community meaning that I've filled her front beds, driveway border, mailbox plot and natural area around the trees into places that hold plants FROM the community. Yes, Julia gave me the run of her yard to pull and dig out plants, like long named things I can't remember; Tricia's mom is too elderly to manage her yard, so Tricia has allowed me to dig up daisies and cone flowers that have become overgrown; My own yard has an abundance of periwinkle and liripe, so some of that has put down roots "elsewhere", Louise gave me irises that grew and multiplied and are now in the community yard, the apartments where my oldest daughter lived was sold and everyone moved out in prep for demolition and I dug up some irises there as well, I "borrowed" Wisteria that was looking for an escape from a yard I pass when I walk to the Post office at work, and I found some cousin wisteria vines behind work church. I'm on the lookout these days for overgrown beds and I listen out for folks who want to thin out their plants.

A couple of years from now, if anything is still alive, the yard will be rich with diversity and culture, as our own world is. The only fighting is between flower and weed, or the occasional lawn mower herbivore.

I've started working towards the front side now and eventually, I think I'll have mini areas of lots of different things. I use my own compost, or that I can get on sale or at the City yard waste center, so the cost is low. It costs more in gas to get there than in materials now that the get- ready work is done. That's sad. I want to get a bike sometime, and a goal would be to ride out there on Saturdays to work a while. Like I said, it's a goal. Plus, if I poop out, my friend would bring me home I bet.

The plan is to create a yard that doesn't' really need attention. Self-sustaining. A popular word these days. When we get there, I guess I'll have to find another poor soul who will let me play in the dirt. It's hard work, but I keep my own pace and many/most days I am reminded that the simple motions of digging and putting new plant roots into fertile soil, then bedding them down with water and dirt feels comforting to me. So many things these days don't, but working outside, slow and steady comes second only to licking batter- in comfort levels.

Next year, when spring arrives, it will be interesting to see if the hours I've given to this look like anything good. It would be nice to have a positive influence on something as simple as ground.

Maybe I'll post pictures or maybe not.

If you have a place where plants grow, take the time to visit and talk out there. Plants are people, too. ...Or at least in my book they are. Special people who really don't need much from me but a little time, water, conversation and a listening ear.