When this book was announced as the February selection for the Garden Bloggers Book Club, I must admit that I was less than enthusiastic. I had never read a book of letters before, and truly believed I could go on not having read one without missing much.

I was wrong.

Two Gardeners had me under its spell from Elizabeth Lawrence's first letter. She's recommending some catalogs to Katharine, and she writes: "You shouldn't miss Cecil Houdyshel's little brochures....twice a year. I think he is in his nineties now, so you had better hurry." I don't know if she meant it to be a tiny bit humorous, but I got a kick out of it, and liked her immediately. Of the two writers, I have to say that I identified more with Elizabeth throughout the book---her constant thirst for knowledge, her delight over something as simple as learning what was blooming when, and her giving nature all struck me. I also grinned when I read her letter to Katharine from January, 1959, where she says "....I am interested in houseplants---not for myself---but I collect notes on everything that grows!" I'm "guilty" of this as well. I have the overflowing file cabinets to prove it

I enjoyed reading Katharine White's letters, too, but they lacked the personality that Elizabeth's did. I'm positive that's just me. What I admired most about Katharine was her willingness to admit that she didn't know something, and her ability to ask questions. So often, because I write about gardening, I feel like I'm supposed to know everything. When someone (usually family....) asks me a question about gardening, or a particular plant, I hate having to say "I don't know." When that happens, I end up running home to my books and filing cabinets, and searching until I can find the answer. And, if that doesn't work, it's a guarantee that one of my fellow bloggers knows the answer

Part of what made Katharine interesting for me was the fact that she was married to E.B. White. I loved the tiny little glimpses her letters gave me into the life of one of this country's literary icons. One thing that particularly struck me was when Katharine talked about her many health problems in 1969....back fractures, severe dermatitis, beginning loss of eyesight, osteoporosis....I can't even imagine. And Katharine writes to Elizabeth: "My goose is cooked as a writer and so is my hope for a book on which I was working ..." She fears that, as a writer, she's losing her voice as well as losing her health. And what struck me was at this time, E.B. was working on his novel, Trumpet of the Swan. I read this book for the first time in third grade. The gist of it is that the main character, a male swan named Louis, can't make the noises that other swans make. But he struggles through, even learning to read and write, and learns to play the trumpet to make up for his lack of a swan song. However, lacking the song will make it almost impossible to attract a mate, and swans mate for life once they've found one. Louis has to learn how to be who he is, and how to attract the love of his life, Serena, without being like a "normal" swan. I wondered, when reading Two Gardeners, if the shadow of losing his life's mate affected this story. I can only imagine that it must have.

I got inexplicable goosebumps reading the letters at the end in which Elizabeth and Katharine discussed what they would do with their letters after they were gone. Well, not inexplicable. I know part of that feeling was the dread of knowing that Katharine's letters would stop soon. I also know that I have no desire to reflect on my own mortality. I've had a couple of health scares in the past few years that have made me do exactly that, and it's not fun. I respected and admired that these two women were determined to make a positive contribution out of what is an undeniable outcome.

I reached the point in the book where Katharine's letters stopped, and I actually cried. By this point in the book, I felt like I knew them both very well. Reading the sentence "On July 20th, 1977 (two days after my birthday, incidentally....) Katharine White died at the hospital in Blue Hill, Maine." made me feel like I had lost a longtime correspondent myself. A couple years after Katharine's death, E.B. has a copy of Katharine's Onward and Upward sent to Elizabeth, and she says: "I have been re-reading and re-reading ever since, with great pleasure and great sorrow. I can't bear not to be able to tell Katharine again what a wonderful book it is." And later on, when E.B. writes that "K's gardens are still lovely, but something has gone out of them that is irreplaceable---something she breathed into them because of her love and her care." Both of these statements of loss and love struck me deeply. E.B.'s assertion that her gardens just aren't the same proves what I've always believed about those of us who love gardening: the garden is a view into our soul. The particular way we place our plants in relation to one another, our particular quirks and preferences about color and form, even the way we choose to prune a shrub or edge a bed all give tiny glimpses into who we are. Someone else can take over my garden, but it will never really be mine again. Part of my soul is in the way I care for it, and it's the same for all of you, I'm sure. All I have to do is read about how Kim leaves her sedums standing in the winter, and prefers them dry and brown instead of bright pink; or about how Annie has had gardens everywhere she's lived, from student housing, to Illinois, to Texas, to feel like I know both of them better for it. And this is why we're lucky we can blog. We get to connect with people we'll most likely never meet. We get to share the triumphs and disappointments of our gardening lives, and very often those in our "real" lives as well. I can see your garden today, just as you're seeing it, and you can see mine the same. Isn't it wonderful? If E.L. and K.W. were alive today, they would be bloggers, without a doubt.

As I'm winding down here, I can make one small criticism of the book. Quite possibly, I'm the only one that was annoyed by this, but that's sometimes the case and it's fine. In 1967, K and E finally met in person for the first time. The editor states that the meeting was "a 'nervous moment' that apparently was in some way disappointing. Afterward, there were months of no letters. When they began writing to one another again, however, they glossed over the silence, and their conversation in letters seemed to take on increased intellectual energy, even as thier physical energy waned." I've read their letters after that meeting several times, and I've never gotten the impression that the meeting was "disappointing" in the least. Katharine even states that she "loved you [Elizabeth] at once as a person and wanted to stay on and talk for hours." I kind of wish the editor had kept her opinion to herself in this case. Katharine is in bad health, and on high levels of medication at this point. She can't even remember if she's written to E.L. recently or not. I found the assertion a little silly. Of course, it could be just me. If I'd edited the letters, I would have kept my opinions to myself. (Yes, I can do that on occasion....it's hard, but I manage )

Overall, I adored this book. I know that Carol has gone on to look for more of Elizabeth Lawrence's writing, and I know I'll do the same. So ends this long-winded review of Two Gardeners

I spent the weekend finishing Teaming with Microbes, the January selection for the Garden Bloggers Book Club. I actually did enjoy it. It was rough reading for me through the first half, partly because my brain just doesn't handle processing anything scientific very well, and partly because as each chapter passed (bacteria, fungi, slime molds, arthropods....) I found myself childishly saying "Eewwww." I forget which page it was on, but Lowenfels and Lewis predicted my reaction perfectly. They remind us that we put our hands in the dirt without worry before we knew all this, and there's no reason to be grossed out now (my paraphrasing ) Keep in mind, I am a gardener who is deathly afraid of spiders, centipedes, millipedes, and earwigs. I know, I'm a total wimp. Although I was relieved to read in the book that all of the millipedes I find in my compost pile are a good thing. Yay!

So anyway, all ickiness aside, I will be applying the recommendations from Teaming with Microbes to my garden this spring. I've mentioned before that my entire yard was sprayed yearly (at least!) with chemicals. The former owner, who lived here for 60 years, was an old time gardener who believed that sprays were the way to handle anything and everything in the landscape. We literally didn't see insects other than ants and flies around here until our second summer, after a year of not having anything sprayed. I've been mulching and composting, and things are turning around. With the practices from Teaming with Microbes, I am looking forward to making my poor, abused soil fully healthy again.

I will definitely be making at least two compost piles: one made to support fungi, and one made to support bacteria, and I will apply them as recommended. I'll be buying an air pump and stone and making my own compost tea brewer. I already mulch with brown leaves, so I was doing well there. I never have any grass clippings to use as mulch because I have a mulching mower. And I don't trust anyone else's grass clippings, so that's out. I want to make a batch of "protozoa soup" just for the hell of it, so I can tell people I did and have them give me that strange look gardeners so often get from non-gardeners. Most of all, I'm just excited about how simple this is, how utterly natural. Knowing the science behind it (even if it was icky) makes me appreciate that, yes, this really will work. Otherwise, I'd probably doubt that the results Lowenfels and Lewis promise are possible.

You guys know me and my odd love of collecting quotes. Here was my favorite one from the book:

"When you team with microbes, there is no small print to read--and no health problems for you, your family, or your pets."

Bingo. That's it, right there. No health problems, no risks of burning out my plants, no locking my kids inside and keeping them off the lawn while I apply my compost tea. No chemical smell in the air, no nasty runoff into our lakes and streams. I hope more people will learn about how to garden this way.

My thanks to whichever Book Club member recommended this book. It was tough reading, but totally worthwhile.

Syringa vulgaris. Not exactly a pretty name, and it belongs to a lilac that is significantly less sexy than some of its relatives. The common lilac doesn't have the showiness of some of the named cultivars of the species. It can't boast the stunning wedgewood blue color of the 'President Lincoln' lilac, or the eye-catching double magenta blossoms of 'Paul Thirion.' And that's not even getting into any of the other 23 species of lilacs.

No, common lilac is just that--at least in my neck of the woods--common. Sure, they get some attention when they are in bloom, and you get the occasional remark about how "you used to see these everywhere." But they are frequently passed by for the splendor of roses, or the effusive cheeriness of the hydrangea. When you do see them, they are often tall and leggy, their blooms far out of reach for lack of pruning. And then, the homeowner cuts them down because they're just not pretty enough.

My first acquaintance with the common lilac was at my grandma and grandpa's old white bungalow in Detroit. Those were the days when kids were told to "go outside" until they were called in for one reason or another. (I'm making myself sound old here....I was a kid in the eighties. But, even so, it seems like we were shoved outside a lot more than kids today. I prefer the way it was...) So, anyway, when we visited "grammy" we were usually shooed from the boring house into the boring yard. We were the only little kids in the family, so there were never any toys around for my sister and I to play with when we went visiting. And, usually, it was summer when we were shooed out the most. I can only imagine it was because of the heat, and no air conditioning, and that we got on everyone's nerves easier when they were hot. Grammy's yard was nothing but grass and garage. Oh, there was the old wood porch that you could crawl under and pretend it was a cave, but even at that age I was grossed out at what you might find under porches.

But at the back of the yard, betweeen the expanse of grass and the mystery that is the alley (I don't know why alleys seemed mysterious to me as a kid---I guess it was because we weren't allowed in them) was a huge stand of lilacs. It covered the whole back fence. It was so thick, the grass had stopped even trying to grow beneath. It was so tall I could walk under the branches, and sit inside what seemed to me then to be a lilac cave. It was the only shady spot in the yard in the summer, other than under the porch. I spent a lot of time in the lilac cave, and when it bloomed in June it seemed like a magical place of my very own, the kind of place I might spot a fairy if I looked very carefully. It was the first time that I fell in love with a plant, and it's the longest lasting love. Plant love can come and go, but true plant love lasts forever.

I was about nine when my grandparents moved from that house to a rented flat with barely any backyard, and no lilacs. Years later, after I was married, my husband and I were on a drive, and I wanted to show him the house and yard that I had loved so much. I remembered the way, and my heart beat a fast staccato rhythm as we turned onto the old street. Then I was met with the full knowledge of what urban blight really is. Of all the houses on my grammy's old block, only three were left standing. The white wood bungalow was long gone. With no reference point, I couldn't even pinpoint where the house would have been.

Until I saw them.

Standing tall and proud, newly leafed out for yet another spring, my lilacs stood against the alley fence surrounded by overgrown grass and the debris of an area left behind. Where man, brick, and wood had failed, Syringa vulgaris fought on. On that day, and every time I picture them, those overgrown lilacs are the most glorious plants in the world.

When we bought our house, some of the first plants to go in were lilacs. I have my own Syringa vulgaris now, and it is the first thing I see when I walk out my side door and into my yard. It's small now, but I know what common lilacs can do. I only hope that someday soon, my daughters will spend time sitting near it, and maybe even under it, imagining that they are in a magical world of their very own.

I recently read, and re-read, the chapter "Earthman vs. the Seasons--Autumn," especially the section titled "Reflections on the Cycle of Life." I read and re-read it because Mitchell so easily expressed my exact feelings about gardening with statements like these:

"It soon becomes clear to the gardener, who has probably started out to achieve a certain bloom, that the cycle of life in the plant is a good bit more enjoyable than the bloom itself."

"It is the spectrum, not the color, that makes colors worth having, and it is the cycle, not the instant, that makes the day worth living."

I touched on my own love of the cycle of life on an earlier post, in which I examined my love of flower buds. It's true that when you start gardening, and for people who are never really gardeners but are responsible for a yard, that you think that the bloom, or the fruit, or the vegetable is the whole point of gardening; that you won't be able to truly enjoy the garden until that rose is in bloom or you have harvested your first ripe tomato. And while those things are great, they are nothing to me compared to the rest of it--the seed starting, the planting, the pruning, the watching---in short, the care and love of plants. And you might even think that the bloom or the fruit is the culmination of all of that care, but it isn't, not really. Because the plant goes on after the bloom, either to stand through the winter, or to set seed and die back--and these things are just as beautiful to me as the plant in full bloom. This is coming from someone who has confessed herself to be a flower addict, and that is still true. As I look out my window right now, I see that the zinnias have just about had it for the year. I'll leave them standing until the finches have eaten all of the seeds off. The viburnums are just ending their brilliant fall display, and are starting to drop their leaves. My yard is a sea of maple leaves. I feel just as happy walking out my door at this time of year as I do at the height of bloom time in May. That is the joy of being a gardener.

I'll leave you with one more great quote from Mitchell:

"In the garden, there is always life, right through the year, and gardeners are merely those people who, while admiring the sex of plants as much as or more than anybody else, go on even beyond, and admire as well the bones and skin and guts and all the rest of it, and who admire more than anything the totality of it in all seasons. Compared to gardeners, I think it's generally agreed that others understand very little about anything of consequence."

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Okay, I'll admit it. I may be the only gardener who didn't know who the hell Henry Mitchell was when this book was suggested for the book club. Let me bow my head in shame.....okay. Now that I've become introduced to Mr. Mitchell, I can see why so many of the bloggers suggested his books. I've just started reading Earthman (didn't get to it this weekend as I planned to) and am on the chapter "Earthman vs. the Seasons--Winter" so I'm not very far in the book. I've already run across several quotes that I've hurriedly scribbled down in my journal:


"Everthing grows for everybody. Everything dies for everybody, too." (Quite possibly my all-time fave gardening quote. I love how straightforward, no-nonsense Mitchell was.)


"We do not, in our gardens, need rarities, nor more land, nor a better climate (though one can conceive of improvements here). We merely need more labor and less grumbling, more brains and fewer store-bought geegaws, and most of all more awareness of what is in front of us in the garden."


"There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises. It sounds very well to garden a "natural way." You may see the natural way in any desert, any swamp, any leech-filled laurel hell. Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners."

This last quote is especially appropriate for this time of year, when we in the north are on the cusp of another long, cold winter. I know, for a fact, that my roses will suffer winter-kill this year, as they do every year. I know that despite the cover I try to give it, my hydrangea will also lose most of next year's flower buds to winter-kill. I know that the mums that I bought this fall and am trying to coddle so that they make it through the year will most likely be lost, despite my best intentions. I know that the squirrels will dig up half of the tulip bulbs on my property, as they do every year, and replant them in odd places, so I have the odd "Greenland" tulip growing up in the middle of the coral bells. And, since I am unwilling to sacrifice even a single bloom in the name of garden orderliness, it will stay there, its pink and green petals clashing with the maroon of the heuchera, until the foliage ripens and I feel safe moving it. So why grow the roses, the hydrangea, the mums, and the tulips, even knowing I will be cursing plentifully come spring? Because what is life without its quirks, without the challenge of trying to figure out yet another way to prevent almost certain trouble? Because one day that spring will roll around when my hydrangea is full of fat buds ready to burst and the squirrels will have found another gardener's tulips to play "musical bulbs" with. And when that day comes, I'll have the satisfaction of a beautiful garden, as well as feeling pretty damned pleased with myself.

So, there's a little taste of Mitchell on this rainy, gray Michigan morning. If anyone out there feels like sharing a favorite Mitchell quote, I'd love to hear it.


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