Mulch Ado About Nothing jj-12

by Jill Churchill

  Shelley and Jane took copious notes. The beginning was about soil conditions and was the first time Jane thought she might just eventually understand what grew in acid soil and what preferred alkaline conditions. She'd probably forget it later, but she'd have the clear listings in her notebook. Julie Jackson's voice, coming through Dr. Eastman's vocal cords, was clear and concise. Lists of common plants that liked acid soil in alphabetical order. What to do to alkaline soil to grow them well. Another list of sun and shade plants. Hostas, she said, could take more sun or shade than most people thought.

  Dr. Jackson was theoretically opposed to strong chemicals, but admitted everyone needed at least one bottle of weed killer and described how, when, and where to use it, and not use it, and how to protect yourself, the good plants, and the pets and children from the poison.

  Furthermore, she listed plants you didn't want to have in a garden if children or pets might try to eat them. The first on the list was monkshood. The second was oleander.

  Jane was scribbling like mad and so was Shelley. They'd compare their notes later and fill in the blanks. Jane made a note to tell Shelley about the mystery she'd read once in which someone at a hot-dog cookout was given an oleander stick instead of a harmless one to skewer a hot dog. What was the name of the author?

  Dr. Eastman had read Julie's speech so quickly that the class ended early on a somewhat breathless note. A couple of people wanted to backtrack and ask questions. "How do you have your soil tested?" Ursula asked.

  Dr. Eastman explained that specialty nurseries might have testing kits, or one could contact the Agricultural Department to provide the material to do the testing.

  Mention of a federal agency didn't go down well with Ursula. "How would I know if they were telling me the truth?" she said. "Everybody in the government lies.”

  Dr. Eastman, who hadn't been subjected to as much of her philosophy as Jane had, merely looked at her with curiosity. "Why would anyone deceive you about soil acidity?”

  Ursula waved this comment away with a gesture that dislodged a small disposable camera from somewhere on her person.

  Stefan Eckert asked, "Do Dr. Jackson's notes say anything about water gardens? And the kind of plants that are best for this area?"

  “I don't believe so," Dr. Eastman said. "But there's a lot of information available from thecounty extension office. Shall we adjourn the class and go see Miss Winstead's and Mr. Jones's gardens early?”

  Charles Jones was on his feet at once. "Excellent idea.”

  Jane murmured to Shelley that this was a good plan. It would allow them to get home early so she could arrange for the cooking lessons and be home when her "rented" garden arrived.

  They rushed along to Charles Jones's house, which was as tidy and boring as he was. A front lawn as neat and well clipped as Dr. Eastman's surrounded a small, absolutely symmetrical, colonial-style home. The evergreen shrubs flanking the front door were clipped into absolutely perfect box shapes. The sidewalks and driveway hadn't so much as one errant leaf or blade of grass ruining their pristine condition.

  “I hope my tires are clean enough to park here," Shelley said, pulling the van up the driveway.

  Miss Winstead wasn't with them this time because her house was the second on the tour and she'd driven herself to class. She parked her car in her own driveway and strolled along the sidewalk to greet them. "Don't even think about walking on the grass," she advised. "The front yard is wired up somehow to turn on blinding lights to keep kids and dogs from daring to step off the walkways.

  Charles himself arrived a moment later, and parked a boxy new Volkswagen on the street so his guests could use the driveway. "I'm so eager to show you everything," he said as Jane was levering herself out of the front passenger seat of Shelley's van.

  “Should we go around this side of the house?" Shelley asked.

  “No. There are no gates. We have to go through the house," he replied, waving them toward the front door. He opened a series of complicated locks and hurried ahead, presumably to turn off various alarm systems. Then he stood in the open door welcoming the others, who had all arrived at the same time.

  Jane and Shelley looked around the living room. It was large but sparsely furnished, with neutral colors and bookshelves filled with computer manuals, and no ornaments whatsoever. The boxy furniture was stark and vaguely Scandinavian, and lined up like it was still on display in a furniture store.

  Charles escorted them through a hall and into a kitchen that was as spotless as he was and out the back door into the yard.

  There was very little grass back here. But many gardens. As sparse as the house itself. Vast areas of mulch highlighted individual specimen plants. The whole area was laid out like a grid, with square gray blocks as pathways, and each single plant was carefully labeled.

  It was so Charles Jones.

  Jane worked her way along a path and leaned forward to examine an interesting-looking perfectly round plant with deep red blooms and almost black centers with yellow stamens.

  MONARCH'S VELVET CINQUEFOIL, the label said, fol‑ lowed by the unpronounceable Latin nomenclature. It was the single plant in the bed. There wasn't even a nice ground cover around it, just boring mulch. And the next bed was a small grouping of DELPHINIUM ASTOLAT, so the label read. Six tall spikes of ruffled pink flowers, all carefully staked. Again, isolated in their splendor and looking beautiful, but lonely.

  “Why is this so depressing?" Shelley said quietly and sounding genuinely sad.

  “Because it's so terribly regimented," Jane said. "The flowers are absolutely perfect and beautiful, but stand like soldiers in separate companies lined up for a picture. And look at the solid fence all around the yard. It's like a prison for the poor flowers, each in its own little naked cell.”

  Ursula, across the yard, was looking downright mournfully at a plum tree that had been torturously trained to complete perfection. Miss Winstead was examining an enormous Bressingham Blue hosta with leaves that overlapped like a drawing of the ideal hosta. Her thin arms were crossed as if she were in some sort of pain. Arnold Waring was bending over to read a tag in an area where the plant was gone. Apparently executed and removed because it hadn't lived up to Jones's standard. "It was a peony," Arnie said to no one in particular.

  “Probably one of those big gorgeous ones that flop around no matter what you try to do," Shelley replied.

  Even Dr. Eastman, whose own garden was rigidly controlled to some extent, looked alarmed and disappointed.

  Only Charles Jones was smiling. "Aren't they lovely?" he said to Stefan Eckert of a stand of hollyhocks in a vibrant red. Eckert merely nodded and moved on to the next little prison cell of flowers. A large yellow rosebush was held in place by a green metal cage and had given up fighting its confinement.

  “I can't stand this," Jane said, heading back to the house to escape.

  “We must find a way to thank the poor man for showing it to us," Shelley said, holding out an arm to steady Jane as she lurched along.

  “I guess we must. He obviously loves what he's done," Jane said with sorrow. "Isn't that unbelievable?”

  Seventeen I:.

  jane was so depressed by Charles Jones's garden that all she wanted to do was go home and eat a whole lot of fudge and try to take a very long nap. She begged Shelley to run away with her, but Shelley said, "You'd be sorry if you missed Miss Winstead's garden."

  “You mean she'd make sure I was sorry?”

  Shelley laughed. "No, although she might. She and Charles both admitted that their gardens couldn't be more different." She kept her voice low as Miss Winstead was standing only a few feet away and urging everyone along next door.

  Jane struggled a bit going up the sidewalk to Miss Winstead's home. There was quite a rise to the south. Instead of going around the house, they were invited to come through the front. Her house wasn't exactly what Jane had expected of the tough librarian. It was feminine but strong. Floral wallpaper, but in bold colors. A lot of good furni
ture, two small leather sofas, a modernistic dining room table and chairs with bargello needlepoint seats in mauve and federal blue. A pair of chairs that looked as if they might have been Frank Lloyd Wright or a good imitation. There were a lot of pictures on the walls, some very old-fashioned with classical themes, a few more modern ones that were Picasso-ish. A mix that, surprisingly, worked perfectly together.

  Passing through a huge kitchen that was equipped for a chef, they entered the backyard.

  And Jane, who was still recovering from such a large, professional kitchen, gasped.

  It was a quintessential English cottage garden. There were lots of old brick paths with lush moss, stone terraces, well-clipped hedges. There was very little lawn, but a vast profusion of flowers. Tall, perfect cream hollyhocks formed a backup to a riot of bachelor buttons in a mix of colors that in turn were framed in front by a delicious group of huge chartreuse hostas, which were kept from overrunning the slate path by a formal box hedge, no more than six inches high and perfectly clipped.

  No area was quite on a level with any other area. The yard sloped down to the right, and was terraced expertly with fieldstone in one spot, with a waterfall of lobelia in front of a stand of coral gladiolas and maiden grass. Another terrace was of dark granite blocks with pink verbena cascading over the front, and behind it a hedge of wild white roses climbing rough wood trellises that looked as if they had to be at least a hundred years old.

  “You're surprised?" Miss Winstead asked. "Surprised? Stunned to the core," Jane said. "This could be in Kent, England, instead of Chicago."

  “There are secret gardens," Miss Winstead said smugly. "See if you can find them.”

  Jane nearly forgot about her foot. There were paths leading through these gardens to "rooms" not seen from the house. She laboriously worked at climbing some shallow stone steps to the hollyhock garden, which led unexpectedly into a formal sitting area with a verdigris table and four chairs underneath a loggia covered with wisteria with a trunk the size of a large man's thigh.

  Almost invisible behind the gladiolas was another "room" that had a spectacular vine with red trumpet flowers covering it.

  “That's my only really big mistake," Miss Winstead said, having followed Jane.

  “How can it be a mistake? It's beautiful! So lush and such a brilliant color."

  “But it's a thug," Miss Winstead said. "It spreads like wild, sort of like kudzu but prettier. I know people who have had it near their house and it's put down roots that go under the house, and plants come in cracks in the basement. Cracks it apparently causes. It tears down fences, forcing itself between the slats and moving into other yards. This fall I'm taking it out if I can. I didn't know enough about it before I planted it. It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase because I liked the flowers and the shape. It will probably take years of weed killer to totally eradicate it." "That's a pity."

  “Yes, it is. But I can't let a vandal take over the yard. Come see the pool."

  “There's a pool?”

  It was in the lowest spot and was fed by a stream falling over lovely round river rocks. A fountain that looked like a well-greened copper Neptune spouted water from his trident, and goldfish frolicked colorfully around the water lilies below. Black ones, orange ones, and a pair of huge gold ones that looked like they were truly armored in gold plate. "That pair are koi," Miss Winstead said. "I'm afraid I'm eventually going to have to find another home for them when they get so big that they eat everyone else. They can get absolutely huge.”

  A frog was startled by their approach and leaped into the pool like kids do cannonballs into a swimming pool. Most of the water lilies were lemon-sherbet yellow, and another plant had sprays of lacy flower heads dropping over the edge. "What are those?" Jane asked.

  “Oh, just common papyrus," Miss Winstead said.

  “I've never seen papyrus growing for real," Jane said. "It doesn't look common at all. Isn't this a huge amount of work? The water is crystal-clear. No green goo at all."

  “I just clean the filters about every five days. It's a messy job, but with natural biological deterrents added, enzymes that starve algae, it keeps clean. And I have a pair of men who winterize it for me. It was they who put the pool in to start with and they know it well."

  “Winterize?"

  “They net it in the fall to keep the oak leaves from the yard behind me from falling into the water — they would make the water acid and eventually rot and cause pollution. My men come back out when the leaves have all fallen and take the leaves and net away. Then they catch the fish and snails and frogs and put them in big buckets of water, drain and clean the pool, turn off the fountain, refill the pool with fresh dechlorinated water, and put a bubbler in to keep an area clear to get rid of the methane that would be trapped and kill the fish and plants. They're the same young men who constructed the terraces and paths over the years as I found materials I liked."

  “You go shopping for rocks? Where?”

  Miss Winstead looked at Jane somewhat pityingly and said, "At rock suppliers. The ones at most nurseries that even carry rocks have such artificial-looking junk."

  “You're so fortunate to have help with this," Jane said. "But I bet you do all the gardening yourself.”

  Miss Winstead looked surprised. "Of course I do. It's all to my taste and who would know my taste except myself?"

  “How do you keep that moss alive in the bricks? I've always wanted a little moss garden in a bowl, and I kill moss faster than anyone can believe."

  “Never water, only mist," Miss Winstead said. "And make sure it's in a cool place with shade."

  “I'm glad to know you can get around well when you want to," Shelley said, joining them at the side of the pool. "I'm going to remember this when you try to convince me you're helpless. Miss Winstead, this is the most beautiful garden I've ever seen.”

  Miss Winstead allowed herself a moment of preening, then said, "A person who really wants something badly enough will do anything to have it. It's a lot of work, but all enjoyable. If I lived in the South where I had to keep up with weeds and insects all year round, I'd have an apartment instead of gardening. And the only plants would be violets on the windowsills."

  “Why is that?" Shelley asked.

  “Because I love putting the garden to bed in the late fall. Tearing out things that didn't work out, planting bulbs, and mulching the delicate things. Then I have all winter to plan the next spring and summer without any work at all. Just waiting for plant catalogs to drool over.”

  The rest of the group was gathering at the side of the pool. Miss Winstead disappeared for a moment and came back with tiny packets of fish food, which the goldfish and koi greedily gobbled up, mouths agape as if they were starving. Arnold Waring smiled at their antics and so did Charles Jones, who quickly ruined the smile bysaying, "Didn't I say Miss Winstead's garden and mine were very different?”

  He sounded so proud of this, as if he had no sense of how much the rest of the class loved Miss Winstead's garden. Or any concept of how dreary his own was.

  Stefan Eckert looked as if he were dreaming, his eyes half-closed with contentment. Even Ursula was impressed. "This is what I'd like my yard to look like," she said, quietly for once.

  Dr. Eastman said, "Fine work, Miss Winstead. How long has this garden been here?"

  “Only five years come fall," she replied. "Not counting the two years I spent figuring out where I wanted the walls and walks and hedges."

  “That's the true measure of a real gardener," Dr. Eastman said. "The patience to wait, the planning ahead…"

  “And the pure mean-spiritedness to rip up anything or anyone that doesn't work out," Miss Winstead said.

  Dr. Eastman paled, but didn't respond.

  Eighteen

  "Boy, that was scary," Jane said as she hoisted? herself into Shelley's station wagon.

  “Aren't you glad her remarks weren't aimed at us?" Shelley said, making a little shiver. "If I'd been Dr. Eastman, I'd be installing a ne
w security system right now. We better hurry home. I've got to take the girls to their cooking lesson. They're starting a couple days late, but they can catch up in the next round of classes. The teacher says she covers the same thing the first day of each session, but after that it's different recipes."

  “Does this mean they can take lessons the whole rest of the summer!" Jane exclaimed. "And by the way, what did this first group of lessons cost? I need to reimburse you."

  “Only five bucks a day," Shelley said. "But we had to pay for the days they missed.”

  After she'd pocketed Jane's check, Shelley abandoned her and gathered up their daughters and drove off to fetch the third girl, Katie's best friend, Jenny. Jane was glad she had a good excuse not to drive a summer car pool. As soon as Todd was old enough to drive, she'd be through with car pools, except for blind kids she drove to their special school once a week. She'd once filled in for one of the other women who'd broken her arm two years earlier and was getting time off in kind until she could drive again.

  Enough of thinking about the distant future. The immediate future loomed.

  She was going to have to do some work before the nursery guys delivered her "instant" garden. She went out the back door to find the pooperscooper in the garage. She left it by the patio table and spent a full fifteen minutes nudging along the trash bin onto the patio. She'd always figured poop scooping was somehow inherently a male job. She'd always made Mike or Todd do it. But today neither of them was around. And even Katie was gone. Not that Katie would acknowledge such a request.

  In her travels around the yard, she got the tip of the crutch stuck in a chipmunk hole, and put it down once on a fallen branch that rolled away under her. But she managed to stay upright while she quartered the grass. Max and Meow, fresh from hunting mice in the field behind her house, abandoned their favorite activity to hang around with her.

  “You guys are good cats. You do your business somewhere else.”

  Max tried to rub against her leg in appreciation,but she moved the crutch accidentally and he fled for his life.