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CAPE MAY COUNTY MAGAZINE 31 AUGUST '83

Clare's

Irresistible^ Urge To Be Different

It has suddenly occurred to me that the finest thing atxHJt having a garden is that you can be certain it's the only one of it's kind! Having visited so many gardens, it amazes me that I never thought of this before. Even if you decide to duplicate one you saw in the Philadelphia Flower Show, it won't develop like that. Where the one in the show had Pachycandra for a ground cover, you'll prefer Vinca. Or if Tulips were featured you’ll decide on Daffys (since mice don’t eat them)! For shrubs you love Andromeda, but you’ll prefer Eunonymus. the kind that turns scarlet, come Autumn. That isn't stubborncss that impels you to change a few things It's a gardener’s privilege and a compelling instinct Subconsciously. I’m sure, you have an irresistible urge to be different. Stronger than that though, is your dreaming. \ Leafing through the garden magazines I admire all the plant comhinations. Oh yesfthose blue Lobelias look lovely with the white Begonias^ but I’m immediately captivated with the mental picftH$ of how exquisite MY garden will sparkle with blue Lobelias and shining yellow

Marigolds.

The Tiger Lilies in the illustration are brilliant and the low-growing Portulaca shine nearby. It’s a great idea, but I’ll substitute some Cut-aiM Come-Again Zinnias and a

few Hens and Chickens.

Now, I can't speak for every Green-Thumber, but I’ve found this out: I not only change other folks’ plans, I change my own I suppose I’m the sky’s-the-limit, no-

holds-barred gardener.

I’m not speaking financially when I say no holds barred. The most difficult thing a gardener has to do is leaf through the seed and plant catalogs and not spend every cent available. But planting everything that is available from friends, roadsides and abandoned houses will tend to crowd every space around and who can resist? That reminds me: Something happened to our Curly Tansy and I must drive to a lonely back road where we spotted it growing completely without care and in the gravel. Tansy is supposed to discourage ants and such, but we grow it for its own singular beauty and we discovered that with Hyponex put around it, it springs from its usual 18 inch to 6 feet. This year was going to be different. I was NOT going to let my love of plants run away with me. I was going to keep a tight rein on my gardening. I was NOT going to have a hit or miss plot anywhere on the place. Ho! There are now Snowdrops and Snappies put in around our Calendulas, and Larkspur and Bachelor's Buttons with our Pink Yarrow and Sweet Basil. I can say that there’s just one flower that dosen't have a lot of others mixed in here and there. That one is the brilliant orange Tithonia. Though it's an annual, it grows six feet tall and as wide and would pay no attention to anything nearby, but just go on spreading and over-

shadowing any interlopers.

Anyway, our Sweet Peatf are hugging their stakes and happily keeping company with our watermelons.

CLARE CAMPBELL of Ocean View is a free-lance writer, poet, and botanist. She served as consulting rosarian of the American Rose Society and garden editor of the

Camden Courier-Post.

CardenDry? Don't Be Disturbed It rained a lot in March and April. We ungrateful humans said: "It’s too much rain. We oughta get some of this in July and August.” Well, though some of us think we can run everything, no one has yet been able to apportion our rainfall. I’ve heard of "seeding the clouds" to make it rain and, of course, the Indian Rain Dances. For all I know those dances did help for we’ve come to realize Uiat the first Americans had a

lot going for them.

It’s quite possible that The Great Spirit, noting that they did not desecrate His universe, granted them special favors. They deserved them for they did not hack down the forests and throw filth in our streams and oceans. It remained for the civilized (?) white men to do that. And though the Indians chanted and sang songs and pounded their tom-toms for special occasions, most of the time the world was quiet here; no piped-in music (?) assailing everyone’s ears. How noice it would have been to trade with the Indians instead of having to squeeze through super markets, trying to find things we need and part of the time forgetting what it is we want because of the ear-splitting noise from

the loud speakers.

Today it’s even tough to tell one’s doctor where you hurt because of the uproar of rock and roll being broadcast. It’s the same in dentists’ offices, elevators, restaurants —

everywhere.

I have, a few times, said to those working (or trying to) with that racket day in and day out: "How do you stand that so-called music?” Their answer is always the same: “I don’t hear it. "So the question is, if you don’t hear it, why is it on? No answer

to that.

But we’re talking the weather. Yes, things have been wilting for weeks. Those of us who grow flowers knock ourselves out pulling hoses around and turning on sprinklers. We have moments when we declare: "Next year I won’t do this! I’ll join the clever few who don’t bother to grow nothin’! But we know as we are saying it that we will plant and rake and hoe and water as long as

we live.

And we’ll water the birds! For Heaven's sake, when the brooks, what few are left, dry up, what are the birds to do? parch, that’s what, unless we Mlp them. Try going without a drink of water for two weeks and see how YOU

feel.

But, oh, the magic recovery of most plants when it does rain. The Butter-and Eggs growing along out roadsides perk up over night and the Dogwood leaves stop drooping and the tall milkweeds spring "lovely and lush" as Hopkins said. So I have learned oyer the years not to be too disturbed, come a dry spell. And I apply the same attitude toward my profession. If inspiration has a day when it does not bubble forth, I know it will tomorrow.

World's Best Huckleberry Pie

There’s a blueberry pie in our oven and I was so busy thinking of these luscious "blue pearls" that I almost forgot to dot it with butter before I tucked the top crust in place. One of the greatest things about Summer is blueberry pie. That is, if it’s made right. Now I freely admit that I am usually a by-guess-and-by-gosh cook. I resent being hampered by a cook book staring me in the face, usually. However, when I make THIS, I do follow instructions. They’re simple and few, but I know they’re important. This is a very old recipe from New England and that alone should tell you it's superior. Having lived up there and enjoyed every thing I was ever served, I knew that

this recipe would be the best blueberry pie in the world. (You try it and you’ll agree.) But wait — the recipe can come later in this piece. First I choose to go into gales over the berries themselves. You see, I go out and pick ’em and a*ry home not only plump berries in Mother Campbell's lovely basket, but I carry the memory of the scent of the Fines and the Partridge Berry, and my lips are purple with the stain of hog huckleberries that grow near the ones I reap for making my dessert. A hog hikkleberry isn’t any good for pie making. Too many seeds, and tough skins and, well, hog huckleberries. But to pull off whole handsful and stuff them into my (Page 35 Please)

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Peony: Faith Flower

I’m sitting at the dining room table enjoying the incomparable fragrance and the unearthly beauty of three of our Peonies that I cut fresh this morning. Two are wide; the other is a round alabaster globe, showing promise of what will await us when we rise tomorrow. These are white, pure white. The outer petals are full blown with just a bit of upward curve to cradle the lushness of the smaller ones huddled

within.

A Peony has to be'one of the lovliest miracles of creation They look up, appearing to delight in the knowledge that they display the handiwork of the "dear God who made us all." To me. a Peony is a Faith Flower. Particularly the white ones. I could not possibly look (really look!) at one without saying to myself: "This vision

is not anything any scientists on earth can tear down!" They can spend their lives trying to convince us we’re descended from monkeys and apes, they can go to the moon and bring back hunks of rock and assure (?) us that it's just dust and dust bowls. But I challenge them all to attempt to besmirch in the slightest degree the heavenly perfection of a Peony. They can't tell me that it "evolved" from a slimy weed in the bottom of the ocean 100 million years ago. No way!! No more than they can convince me that our little knee-high wild Roses with their tender, pink single flowers "evolved." I hope you grow a few Peonies. I hope A you. too, bring a few into your home to /f ^ enjoy all day and evening. I hope you, », too, commune with them. '

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