It’s now officially fall and my garden is overrun with leaves. I have more leaves in my yard than anyone else. It’s true. As a matter of fact, I have more leaves in my yard than there are grains of sand on a beach. You’ve read it here on the internet so it must be true.

With the falling of leaves, there comes the sound of the soft, methodical rustle of the raking the leaves. Or perhaps the jet engine whine of a leaf-blower. Makes one nostalgic for the fall, doesn’t it?

In the middle of this sea of brown, there is the perky little color that pops up right about now. It is my toad lily which is now a three year resident of my garden.  The toad lily (tricyrtis formosana, for all of the scholars) blossoms in these delicate, one-inch flowers in the fall. These shade-loving perennials allegedly like loamy, moist – not damp – soil. Which is great because I planted mine in poor, somewhat rocky soil that may dry out when I forget about them. So these plants survive with neglect as well.

And then they blossom when all the hostas, coleus and impatiens plants have wilted into a crispy brown with the chill of the fall. The colors are brilliant – although small – and they stand out in the otherwise colorless garden. But the fact that they burst forth now, it’s like the couple that shows up at the prom at 11:30. Ok – you’re beautiful and all but… where were you when everybody else looked good?

This story has been around for awhile but, as is often the case, I’m a little late to the dance.

Life, as President John Kennedy, once noted, is unfair. What he did not say is that it can also be cruel. But within that harsh reality, there are moments of awe-filling grace. Such is the case of Elena Desserich.

In late 2006, Keith and Brooke Desserich were told that their beautiful five year old daughter, Elena, had inoperable pediatric brain cancer. The diagnosis: 4-5 months.

The only error in the diagnosis was the time: she lived another nine months, leaving her parents and her younger sister, Grace.

A few days after her death, her parents found a remarkable surprise – a note from Elena that she had hidden away. And then another note. And another. The notes were simple messages. “I love you Mom Dad Grace” “I love you Grace. Go. Go.” And the notes kept popping up. Inside books. Hidden in the Christmas decorations. Tucked away, hidden from view. They found three boxes of notes.

Keith and Brooke decided to publish a collection of the notes along with their diary of Elena’s last year so that Grace might have something to remember her older sister.

The privately published book was picked up and is now published for all to read. Both Keith and Brooke keep one note from Elena on them at all times – unopened. They don’t want the messages of love, of beauty and bravery, of encouragement to cherish each moment, to end.

Their book, Notes Left Behind, can be purchased on their site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

He’s contemplating what the future will bring.

One of my son’s favorite books was Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are“. This ten sentence book told the story of a little boy – perhaps 4-6 years old – who is angry with his mother and is sent to his room without dinner. There in his room, his imagination runs… “wild”. The boy plays with large monsters, gets bored, returns home… and finds his supper waiting for him – still warm.

It is a story about a boy, his anger and imagination, and his mother’s love and forgiveness.

So we went to the movie yesterday. And it was awful. Which is unfair to awful movies.

This gentle story has been twisted and distorted into a truly wretched movie by the auteur director, Spike Jonze. The young boy has been turned into a 9-10 year old. When a 5 year old has a tantrum, it’s not too troublesome. When a 9-10 year stands on a kitchen table, screams and then bites – actually bites – his mother, it is disturbing.

Jonze obviously doesn’t know any kids. In fact, this movie is so out of touch with reality, it is doubtful that he was ever a kid. It could be the first tangible proof of alien life on earth.

The wild things on the island are their own set of disturbing entities. The “leader” is Carol, who is voiced by James Gandolfini. None are cuddly, warm and endearing. They are a thoroughly dysfunctional, extremely unhappy and very tortured group. And while it is completely unfair to Gandolfini, the fact is that Carol channels Tony Soprano. There is always the ever-present threat of violence with Carol who uses his size and presence the same way that Tony did. And when Carol is destructive – (SPOILER ALERT) – he rips an arm off another creature, you expect Paulie Walnuts to pop up and say, ‘it’s ok, Tone. He had it coming.”

Obviously, my opinion is not universally shared. Rotten Tomatoes shows 69% of its critics with a favorable opinion. On Yahoo, critics give it a “B+” although viewers give it a “B-”. One of the odder aspects of these Yahoo reviews is that there is a consistent theme that the film is not for kids. Seriously.

Hollywood does this occasionally with such dreck as “The Cat in the Hat” which destroys children books in favor of scatology and references to flatulence.

My son hated it also. I had a feeling that a little of childhood was taken from him.

I was asked the other day about my garden this year and, as is true of many things in my life, I have been negligent in updating this blog on some of the good things that have happened.

Awhile ago, I was walking through the gardens behind the Daniel Webster Inn in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Sandwich is one the earlier settlements in the days of the Plymouth Colony and has a nice quiet quality to it. Not the usual messy, overcrowded Cape Cod town like a Dennis but closer to the Eastham, Wellfleet character. The vegetation is different though than the outer Cape.

The Inn’s garden was truly lovely. (Photo to the right.) A place for contemplation and conversation. Among the many annuals in the garden was a purplish-silver plant that was new to me. Fortunately, my friend was wiser in the ways of horticulture (and many things) and could identify it as a “Persian shield” (strobilanthes dyerianus). They are almost 3 feet in height and have just the most striking colors on a plant.

When I began to plot out my garden for this year, I made certain that I picked up some of these Persian shield plants. As a matter of fact, I planted these new additions in three different areas in the garden: one cluster in back which was more heavily shaded and two areas in the new “peace” garden.

The plants did well in all three areas but somewhat curiously, the ones in the more heavily shaded area had a much more green and silver aspect to the leaves than purple (almost black) and silver.
One can see the Persian shield at the top of the photo, at the back of the “peace” garden. And yes, it needed weeding – most of the garden did this year.

I really liked the addition of this plant to my garden. The colors were striking. They were relatively resistent to bugs – and the omnivorous slugs. And they remind me of a time and place that I wished to recapture.

As many gardening folks know, HGTV has continued it’s slow evolution into being the HLTV network – Home & Landscape Television. Apparently, for many, this isn’t a big deal. For some of us… it’s a very big deal.

One of the mainstays of that network has been Paul James, a very entertaining and very smart master gardener. Every week (in some years on both Saturdays and Sundays), Gardening By The Yard has educated us while also bringing a smile. Now that network has ended the production of the show (they apparently have more shows still unaired) but they will no longer  be producing new ones.

Paul James tells us, on his new web site: Gardener Guy, that it’s all good. He writes:

My show has not been cancelled. It’s just that it’s no longer in production. What that means is that through 2009 you’ll see 26 new episodes that I shot last year, but after that the show will go into reruns, probably for several years. HGTV has a considerable inventory of “Gardening by the Yard,” and the powers that be felt they didn’t need any more shows.

Frankly, their decision not to renew my show came as no surprise. And to be honest, I was getting burned out by the grueling schedule and travel. That’s one of the reasons I decided to finally launch this website, and hire a literary agent to help me get a book published. Does that mean my television career is over? Not necessarily. I’d love to do another show, but on my terms…

In fairness to the folks at HGTV, they’ve been very good to me. Especially in the early years, they gave me nearly complete creative freedom, and they paid me well… I have very fond memories of many of the people who helped launch the network, and I’ve developed some wonderful friendships with past and current employees. (excerpted from his posting)

Yeah, right. I know fertizilier when I smell it. But he’ll be writing on the web and perhaps a book. And HLTV will have new shows for awhile. But Paul James is in my personal pantheon of gardeners, along with James Crockett, Alan Titchmarsh, and Erica Glasener. They have helped me understand the beauty and possibilities of gardens – and the joy of gardening.

Fortunately, on his web site, Paul captured a shot of a HGTV executive visiting his garden:

Among many other surreal moments of the day, I remember how empty the skies were.

Everything had been grounded earlier and the clear, bright blue skies were vacant. It was quiet and curiously peaceful. Early that day the skies held violence. Neighbors had died and friends had ~ through the grace of God ~ not taken one of the planes departing from Boston.

And then, it was quiet and empty. And unrelentingly sad.

It rained over half the month of June. Endlessly. Ceaselessly. Grey skies. Saturated soil.

July. Much of August. As a matter of fact, the garden had so little sun that the growth of many plants was truncated.

There is so much water in the soil that I have to pay attention to the tides.

And it gets better…

The slugs were rampant.

I’ve never seen anything like this. Six inch slugs. Climbing trees. Climbing my house. This is just so weird.

And then there is the news from the BBC.