GroHappy

Funky smells

With a second try at a class on sachets, I got a much better turnout. Before we started to make our sachets, we went for a walk in the daffodil garden, where nearly 4,000 daffodils are planted. As we walked into the area a few clients commented on the sweet smell as we walked up the stairs to the trail. “Around the walkway we planted fragrant daffodils so you would have both sight and smell stimulated as you started to explore the area.”

The group of us just stood in the garden, quiet, appreciating the day that nature had given us. After a few minutes we made our way to the art room and started to make spring sachets. My clients had 15 different herbs, flowers and spices as well as a dozen different fragrant and essential oils to choose from. “When you do aromatherapy you always use essential oils, which come directly from the plant. Fragrant oils are chemically distilled and much less expensive. For instance, this rose oil I have costs only $5 as a fragrant oil; its essential counterpart is priced at over $200.”

Everyone was a bit shocked at the price difference but understood the reasons why after I explained how oils are distilled from the plant. As I had them smell some of the different oils I asked if any had strong feelings about scents. One client spoke of cinnamon breads her father used to make around Easter and that cinnamon always triggered that memory. But along with the pleasant comes the unpleasant. Skunk was a universal bad smell for the clients. They all knew and remembered the pungent and fetid aroma of skunks as well as dead animals on the side of the road.

The first part of the therapy was to decorate the sachet bag. One client was a little recalcitrant. “I’m not an artist. This won’t be good.” I assured her that whatever she drew would be fine and that it should be something that will make her happy. She shrugged and drew a delicate little flower.

The next stage, mixing the herbs and oils, was a little more complex as a few complained that I gave them too many choices. I told them to pick their favorite smell and build their sachet around that. Lavender was a favorite with over half my clients, but a few went a tad overboard in their use of oils.

“This is a really funky smell,” said one. “Is this right?” I put my nose into her mixture of five different herbs and was hit with a very sultry scent dominated by lavender with a hint of lemon. “How much oil did you put in your mix?” I asked.

“Oh about 3 or 4 or 5 drops. . .maybe 6,” she replied. I smiled.

“Ladies, one of the things you need to be careful about is your use of the oils. They are very powerful. Put one or two drops in. Mix everything up and then stick your nose into the mix. Then decide if you need more or have enough. If you do that, you will get a good idea of how your mix smells. All of the scents are powerful and you should add small, incremental amounts.

“As for you,” I said to my lavender client, “ Just leave your sachet out for a while rather than put it in a plastic bag. The lavender scent will dissipate and get to an intensity that you are comfortable with. As it fades, other scents will reveal themselves.”

She thanked me and took another whiff. “Perhaps I’ll just add another drop of two,” she mused acting like a cat enveloped in catnip. Others, even after my suggestion, leaned heavy on the oil dropper overwhelming their sachet with their scent of choice. Yet when everyone was done and passed around their crafts, all loved the smells created by their classmates.

The next day, I met the woman who had squirted lots of lavender into her sachet. “I just wanted to let you know that the sachet made my room smell wonderful.  Everything smelled like lavender and it was very relaxing,” she said with a big smile on her face. “It was fantastic.”

When 1 is better than 13

One of the more gratifying aspects of volunteer work is the response you receive from your clients. I was especially looking forward to a recent horticultural session at Ann’s Place as we had nearly filled up the class with 13 pre-registrants. This class focused on creating sachets and mulling spice packets. So I got to the facility early to ensure everything was in place. Chairs for everyone plus a few possible drop ins, everything laid out on the table for sachet making, pens to decorate the sachets, a coffee urn cleaned out to make mulled cider, an ironing board and iron to seal the tea bags that would be used for the mulling spices, etc.

With 20 minutes to spare everything was ready for the crowd.

And with 10 minutes to spare everything was ready for the crowd.

And with no minutes to spare my first client shows up. And that was it.

After we made some small talk, she looked rather embarrassed saying, “I was really looking forward to this. Perhaps I should call my husband.” I told her no that we would have a session between the two of us. She didn’t want to put me to any trouble, but I said that since we were both here we should just go on. She turned up a little smile and we started.

While my last session focused on Tussie-Mussies and the language of flowers, this one dealt with more of the smells and tastes that can be derived through the mixing of herbs and flowers. “What is your favorite smell?” I asked.

She replied, “Lavender. It reminds me when I was young,” I added that my mother’s favorite was lilac because her mother had lilac bushes in her yard as a child. She smiled and agreed that it was a wonderful smell. I told her that one of my favorite smells was that of pickles (which are predominated with dill, bay leaves and vinegar as the dominant  flavorings) as it reminded me of when I used to eat lunch outside with my father during the summer.

“So one of the things we need to consider when making a sachet is how and where it will be used. For example, if you wanted to create a sachet that would be used in the kitchen or bathroom, it would probably have very different scents than one for a drawer where you kept your fine scarfs.” My client looked at me and said she had never thought of it that way and started taking notes.

“One of the things you need to consider is how to combine different scents.” I had collected 12 different botanicals and 7 different oils that could be used in a sachet. “But you have to be careful how you combine them, because certain things sit better together.”

“There are four category of scents: sweet, sour, vegetable, and animal.” I then described each one and told her that she needed to choose what she wanted to be her fundamental scent and then surround it with related scents.

“Well I think I will pick nutmeg,” she said after sniffing many of the different spices and herbs available. To unlock more of the nutmeg's scent, she started to grind it with a pestle. “Oh my,” she said after a few grinds released the essence of the nutmeg. She then looked over other scents. She took a bit of cinnamon, some chamomile and another spice or two.

As she mixed them she was amazed at the complexity and complementary nature of the smells as they combined in her bowl. And with each turn of the spoon and new scent came a different story and memory of her past. As the scents were being liberated, old and pleasant memories were being unlocked. But now we needed to come to a decision of what type of essential oil to add to the mix. “How about peppermint?,” I suggested. “It is very complementary to what you have put together and it will bind well with the oak moss we need to use as a fixative. We will  place it in a separate bowl so you can smell it as well as your mixture together.”

She agreed. After mixing the oak moss and pepermint, she held her emulsion along with her mix up to her nose. “This is incredible. It’s nothing like I thought it would be. Thank you.” I smiled telling her that I didn’t want to give canned recipes to clients but rather let them explore and discover how smells could be blended.

As we finished making the kitchen sachet we then moved on to mulling spices, which are different parts of cinnamon, clove, allspice, orange rind and lemon rind. We sipped some mulled cider I had made up and I asked her to reflect on the flavors she sensed and to consider which ones she enjoyed more than others.I showed her the mix and then I gave her four tea bags to be filled with spices and suggested that she experiment with different proportions to decide what type of mix she would ultimately enjoy more than others.

More stories and memories emerged while she blended the different spices. We were chatting about her experiences as well as mine. Before you knew it, it was time to clean up and she was looking forward to experience her mixings later in the week. As I was picking up I realized that I didn’t miss the dozen potential clients who didn’t show up.  And in fact more than a little part of me was happy they did not.

Cutting flowers, exposing memories

Part of the practice of horticultural therapy is to help clients work through or at least realize their challenges. Before you can begin to do that, particularly for emotional or social issues, you must first gain the trust of your client. In working with the children at Green Chimneys I have found that one of the easiest ways to do that is to tap the skills from my former profession as a consultant and be a good listener. And one way to do that is by striking up conversations during quiet, intimate tasks.

That happened last week as the chives had bloomed and the flowers needed to be cut to preserve the bulb. As one of my charges said the day was, “cloudless but windy but very comfortable.” So we had ideal conditions to just kneel down and snip the heads off the flowers. It didn’t matter how much of the chive flowers we cut but to make it more challenging and precise I had all the students snip them toward the top of the stem where the flower sat. This would force them to concentrate and consider the job rather than just flail away indiscriminately.

While many of the puff-ball-like flower heads were starting to go to seed, others were still fresh and attracting bees. But after I told my charges that they need not worry about the bees they ignored them and went along their business. After a short time, the onion-like smell of the stalks and flowers coated our hands so our aroma had changed for the day. It was pungent though pleasant and (to me at least) soothing.

One student Bob started speaking about his summer and the trips he would be going on with his mother and step-father. He then started to speak about his grandfather. “I don’t ever want to meet my grandfather. He’s a bad man.” He then started to talk about how his grandfather (as well as his father) was an alcoholic and would beat his father.  “My mom doesn’t drink.”

While Bob was talking about his family he spoke in a calm and matter-of-fact tone. He clipped the flowers carefully, dropping them into a tote and continued to tell me his story. “They could have stopped drinking if they wanted to. It’s all their fault. They are bad.”

“Bob, alcoholism is a disease that never leaves you, even if you stop drinking. Yes, perhaps they could stop drinking but it is not easy and a constant battle. I’m sorry that their actions hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” said Bob. “They are not part of me or my Mom’s life.” Bob didn’t seem to want to talk any more so we silently finished removing the flowers from the clump of chives we were in front. Bob did such a good job I let him harvest the first of the strawberries as a treat as well as a few gooseberries. “This was a good day,” he said as I took him back to class.

Judy, my next student, had a different reaction around the chives. She was working along side other students in a group that I was managing and became very possessive about cutting a certain number of flowers. “These are mine!,” she said. So I gave her a wide berth and let her cut the flowers. She did a good job sometimes lingering and looking at the individual blooms while delicately holding them in her hand.

I later took her aside and asked why she had become so possessive. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to have my own space and do it on my own.”

One of the my last students, Josh, was making quick work of the job. He cut the heads closely and quickly. He discovered that flowers that had mostly gone to seed were easy to pull off the stalks. “Is it ok if I pull them rather than cut them?”

I replied yes but he had to make sure that the flower was past. I demonstrated to him the difficulty in trying to pull off a live flower verses the relative ease in removing a seed pod. He nodded and then said, “These smell like stink bugs.”  I didn’t know the type of bug he was referring to so I asked him to describe one to me. He then started to look bothered and said that he didn’t want to. I asked why.

“They live in the country where I was born. It’s not a nice place. I don’t want to remember anything about it.”

“Would you like to talk about this?”

“No because if I do I won’t be able to stop and I want to forget about ever coming from there.”

Josh was now agitated. I needed to change the topic. “Josh, how would you like some strawberries?” His face immediately brightened. “Is there any asparagus left?”

“Yes I think so and there may be some gooseberries for you also.”

His face brightened with a big smile so we picked up our pruners, knee pads and tote of chive flowers and walked toward the shed to put them away. “Do you think I could have two strawberries, Mr. Keller?”

“Sure, Josh,” I replied. “If you can find two ripe ones.” He ran off toward the strawberry patch in front of me, forgetting the chives and thinking about the strawberries that he hoped to find.

Charlotte Rose Monday

Perhaps it is fitting that my granddaughter Charlotte Rose was born last Monday, which was Rosenmontag (Rose Monday). This day before the beginning of Lent is the highlight of the German celebration of carnival very similar to the Mardi Gras celebration held in New Orleans (and other cities in the U.S.) on Fat Tuesday.

For us this is not a drunken celebration of excess (though the maturity ward was handing out Mardi Gras beads yesterday) but a sober one reflecting on the joy and fragility of new life. Charlotte is a tiny little bundle who needs to be cared for and cuddled. As the snow continues to melt away, I think of the summer and fall when she can accompany her grandpa in the garden.

In the beginning it will be a passive activity with her in a little hat and covered so she doesn’t get sunburn while she watches her grandpa pulling weeds or harvesting fruits. Perhaps she will focus on a bug she spots on a tomato plant. Or she will want to taste a late-ripening strawberry in September. By next year, she will be working with grandpa finding worms in the soil and planting seeds with her little trowel (I already have a little garden bag for her.)

I can’t wait.

Raking memories and leaves

I hadn’t raked leaves at my mother’s house for nearly 35 years. The yard service had done a final cut a few weeks back but since then it seemed as if all the neighboring trees had decided to give their leaves up to my mother’s lawn as a going away gift. Her trees—all oaks—have been stubbornly been hanging onto their charges not wanting to give up this year’s production. It was as if they decided that this was the season to wear a raccoon coat of foliage and no rain or wind would remove the slightest bit.

So as I looked upward at the future blanket for the lawn, I needed to deal with the neighbors’ leaves. There was an old rake missing a few teeth in the garage that my father used years ago before he turned over that duty to others and a pile of old plastic bags. I asked my mother to join me outside. To my surprise she did.

The straw-like zoysia grass was holding onto its blanket with more vigor than does my fescue at home. Perhaps it realizes that the trees above will not give them cover quickly leaving them to deal with the cold autumn winds for longer than they would like. Regardless, I pulled the leaves into large dumpling-shaped piles in the middle of the lawn. Now it was time to bag.

My mother walked out to take a look and I joked to her if she would like to jump into a pile. She laughed and said that was my pleasure of years ago. I thought back about that and remembered that the piles seemed so much larger then. My father and I would rake leaves into a heap that was as tall as me and then I would burrow inside as would a creature readying to hibernate for the season. It was warm and there was an unmistakably sour-sweet smell of decay.

But the piles have gotten smaller as I now towered over them not wanting to jump in but bag them so the town could haul them away to compost. At my home, I just rake the leaves into the woods. Job done. But in my mother’s manicured neighborhood, there is no such space and everything must be removed.

So I opened a bag, shook it out and placed it on the ground anchoring it with my feet and holding an edge while my other arm started to pull swaths of leaves into the bag. Like a piston, my arm mechanically swept the area until I needed to stop and rebuild the pile. Pulling the bag off the ground I shook it and then punched the leaves down, compacting them into a tight mass before repeating the exercise. My father taught this to me.

My mother was supervising the operation from the front step, sitting down carefully after she placed her cane next to her and a piece of cardboard under her as a cushion. I went over during a break and we reminisced about how my father used to feed the squirrels with walnuts from his hand. He would squat down in an seemingly impossible configuration with his knees high and his bottom low rhythmically bouncing while he would smack the walnuts (or filberts) together announcing his arrival.

Initially cautious, the squirrels took to my father (and his nuts) quickly. But they soon came to expect his attentions on a more frequent basis. If they perceived he was late they would come to the house and congregate on the stoop chastising my father that he wanting. And in a Pavlovian manner he would respond.

My mother and laughed. I handed her an acorn and went back to work.

I want his family dead, his house burnt to the ground

“What?!
   They got the whole shipment.

l want that son-of-a-bitch dead!
   We're trying to locate...

What am l, alone in this world? 
Did l ask you what you're tryin' to do? 
l want you to get this %$#@ where he
breathes! l want Eliot Ness dead!
                 
l want his family dead,
his house burnt to the ground!”

Robert DeNiro, as Al Capone in The Untouchables, upon being told that Eliot Ness captured a large shipment of liquor.

Now this blog is supposed to be about horticultural therapy and about the soothing effects of working with plants. And as I attempt to become a less pushy, Type A person and more of a gardening Zen master, I have been reasonably successful (I think) in letting most things just roll off my back like water off a duck. Aphids on the roses; a little horticultural spray. Birds starting to eat the berries; net them. Weeds back in a patch; bend down and pull them. It’s all fine and part of the gardening experience.

But I swear to God, if I ever find those . . . Calm down.

I usually don’t start out a post like this but we were burgled last night by a team of ruthless invaders and they cleaned us out. I just want to get an axe like Jack Nicholson in The Shining . . .

OK, calm down, where to begin.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were looking out the window during breakfast saw a mother groundhog and five fat little babies eating grasses in my next door neighbor’s lawn. They were really cute playing around and chomping down breakfast as were we. We were having one of those Kodak/Taster’s Choice nature moments. After they scurried away, we didn’t think much of them. After all they were on the other side of the street.

Now because of the large amounts of deer we have in Ridgefield, we have a large fence around our property that we keep closed. I have an additional fence around my vegetable garden to keep out rabbits and the like, as they can burrow under our fence. Unfortunately over the past month, I haven’t been as diligent in keeping the door shut to the vegetable garden as I should have and over the last week or so I noticed a few chewed leaves on a small sunflower that was making its way up.

No problem, some squirrel or bug.

Then I noticed the lettuce was nibbled. I figured that the slugs were making their yearly march so I put down some tuna fish cans of beer and sprinkled iron phosphate on the soil. In retrospect, however, I now remember that there were no slug trails around these tasty greens. Hummm.

Then the day before yesterday my squash plants were a bit trampled on with some of the leaves munched upon. I figured that my lax security had created an opportunity for some animal. I needed to keep the gate shut.

And so I did and there were no problems. Until this morning.

When I went out for the paper, I noticed a bunch of sticks and shavings at the bottom of the garden gate. Upon closer investigation, I found that those weren’t sticks, it was the bottom of the gate, or what was left of it. Either last night or early this morning, something came and chewed through my garden gate. Reading up on what type of creatures would do this and could do this, only one fit the bill: The groundhog.

Only a groundhog with its razor sharp claws and fast growing teeth could do this type of damage. A raccoon could easily climb over the fence as could a possum. Bunnies don’t eat through a wooden gate. Moles, rats and voles could easily slip though the spaces in the fence.

Nope it’s got to be a groundhog. And a brood of babies.

Upon gaining entrance to the garden it was a smorgasbord of delight for them. All you can eat. And they did.

“Mommy. Can I have seconds?”

“Sure darling, help your self.”

“I love these peas.”

“This organic broccoli is awesome.”

“Now children, don’t gulp your food. There is plenty more.”

I hate groundhogs. I want them dead. I want. . .OK, take a deep breadth. Continue.

Lettuce, kale, cauliflower, peas, sunflowers, broccoli and radishes. Gone. Half of my squash plants. Gone. My greens were just ready for their summer harvest. Gone. A second crop of broccoli was due in and the kale was ready to make either chips or for stir fry. Forget about that. This was going to be the year! Not now.

So now it is time to replant for a late summer and fall harvest and hope that these relatives of Punxsutawney Phil can be kept out of the garden so they don’t get my tomatoes as my plants are filled with flowers and a few tiny tomatoes. They stayed away from the leaves of potatoes and tomatoes as well as the herbs. They didn’t touch any of the garlic or the carnivorous plants that were out of the greenhouse.  There is some hope.

So I need to repair the gate and put up some more mesh to keep them out. Wish me luck.

Weeding out anger

My first realization that gardening could have a therapeutic effect was over a decade ago when I worked at a company called Gartner. At Gartner I would analyze different companies, software products and technologies each day to render dozens of judgments with either a thumbs up or down. By the end of the work day my nerves would be frayed and my disposition tense. Even a 45 minute drive home would not be enough to soothe the savage beast within as decisions would be revisited and work would continue via cell phone conference calls.

One of the ways I returned to the human race was to spend time in the garden even before I would see my wife and children. After pulling the car into the garage, I would look over the vegetables, pull a few weeds and water plants in need of a drink. Better them than me. As I spent more time in the garden, the stress and pressure of the work day would disappear like so many dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. Within 20 minutes I was renewed and could be a good husband and father.

I often reflect back on those days when confronted by a child who is angry or upset when they come to the garden. At Green Chimneys letting a child come to work in the garden is a reward for good behavior. But I think sometimes we forget that it can be the salve that can heal broken feelings and pain.

Whenever I pick a child up from class, I ask them how they feel and how their week is progressing. Often the response is quiet indifference but occasionally a child will let loose.

“I’m really pissed off,” said Peter last week to me.

“What’s the matter?”

“My friends are leaving and I hate it.” Two of Peter’s friends were leaving the school and Peter was feeling alone and upset. He just wanted to hit something.

“Peter I know how you feel as friends have moved away from me. But it is part of growing up and will happen again to you.”

He nodded but couldn’t help choke back some tears.

As Peter likes to do physical work I decided to tackle a fairly hard weeding job where we needed to pull large tuffs of crabgrass, mint and other thickly rooted weeds that resided against the fence near the gooseberry and raspberry patches. It was a physically exhausting job as the roots would not give up the soil in their grasp easily.

“Peter try to transfer your pain and anger to the weeds. Every time you feel bad, send your feelings to the plant that is giving you a hard time. Trust me, it will make you feel better.”

As Peter started his job, he didn’t really get into it but rather stood around looking out past the meadow where our sheep graze toward some nearby foothills.

“Come-on Peter. Put your back into it,” I called out. “Get to work.”

With that nudge, Peter started to work. First slowly and then with more gusto. Soon he was digging, prying and pulling up weeds filling our wheelbarrow taking only a break when it filled and needed to be emptied into the compost heap. He grabbed a tuff of crabgrass and with all of his strength pulled back, hard against it. He first started to liberate it from the soil with a little tear before a larger rip followed along with an explosion of soil.

“Wow! Look at this Mr. Keller!” he said holding up a mass of green weeds.

Other clumps were beyond his strength alone and together we pulled the recalcitrant plants from the ground. He seemed to enjoy working next to me. Before he knew it, our time was over; he was a sweaty mess and it was time to clean up.

“Are we done? Can’t we keep going?,” he asked.

“I’m sorry Peter, but it’s time to get you back to class. How do you feel?”

“Much better. That was great.”

We both smiled at our accomplishment. As a reward, Peter got a piece of lemon leaf and one of our first ripe strawberries. A small stream of sweet juice leaked out of his mouth as he chomped down on the large very red berry.

“Can we do this next week?” he asked.

“I’m sure we can Peter. There will always be weeds to pull.”

Changes in attitude and spider homes

I was looking forward to picking up Cheryl a few days ago to work in the Children’s Garden at Green Chimneys. There was much to do as the broccoli had started to bolt and the spinach was perfect for harvest. When I picked her up, however, something wasn’t right. Cheryl was looking at one of the classroom computers intently and when told that it was time for her job replied, “I don’t want to go! I hate being in the garden.” Oh boy.

Upon walking with Cheryl to the garden I asked her how her week had gone and how she feels. “It has been horrible and things suck,” was the reply she made as she choked back a few tears. “Is there anything you want to do in the garden?,” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Would you like to sit down and talk or walk?”

“No.”

A similar problem occurred with Cheryl a month ago and I decided to take her back to class rather than risk her having a breakdown in the garden. Unfortunately that decision may not have been the best as her return turned into a power struggle, which just made her more upset and agitated. I decided to take a different tack.

“Today Cheryl we will be harvesting spinach and broccoli. Would you like to see the peas we planted last month before we begin?”

“No.”

So we walked to the barn to get kneeling pads and pruning shears. With few words exchanged we sat down in front of the broccoli bed and I showed her how to harvest it using pruners. Cheryl nodded in understanding and worked quietly with a far away look on her face as she cut the heads and placed them in a bin. I didn’t try any conversation as I worked next to her weeding an adjacent patch. She remained emotionless as she worked though it appears that she was beginning to relax. Within five minutes her attitude started to change visibly. Her facial expressions softened and she noticed a butterfly that floated nearby.

In another five minutes she became more animated and content; by the end of the harvest, she was smiling and working intently. “I’m done,” she said with pride in her voice.

“No you aren’t,” I replied. “You missed one.”

In the middle of the broccoli patch was a tiny, uncut floret. I snipped it with my shears and gave it to her. "This is your reward. Try it.”

As she bit into it her eyes went wide and she said,” That’s awesome! It’s so delicious!” Cheryl had never had fresh broccoli before.

I smiled and asked her to pick up our harvest so we could weigh it in. As we walked toward where the scale was hanging I reflected upon how just being in the garden had changed Cheryl’s view. She went from a near meltdown to being extremely happy.

As we weighed the broccoli I grabbed a group of heads and stuck them in her face. The fresh smell of the cut heads was powerful and slightly sweet. Cheryl loved the smell and was amazed. “I never smelled anything like that,” she said.

“So what does it smell like?” I asked.

She thought about it for a while and replied that she didn’t know.

“It smells like broccoli, you silly goose,” I said. She laughed and smiled.

She had better attention and focus as we cut the spinach. She ate a leaf and was also amazed by the freshness and the taste. But mostly she was shocked by their size.” These are humungous,” she said. We then had a contest as to whom could find the most humungous spinach leaf. She won but not before she accidently ripped a large leaf. Cheryl wanted to try to fix it using scotch tape but I told her that most people would not like it as part of their dinner. “They could always take it off. It would look pretty.”

As we were finishing I noticed that there was a lone head of romaine lettuce that hadn’t been cut from the last time we were in the garden due to the fact that a large brown spider had taken up residence inside. “Do you think the spider is still there,” asked Cheryl remembering why we had left it. I pulled up a bunch of leaves and couldn’t see anything so we clipped it and added it to our pile. For the morning, we had harvested nearly 10 pounds of food.

As it turned out I had not been that good an inspector and as I was carrying the tote filled with produce, I noticed that our brown spider was climbing out of the cut lettuce carrying a large fluffy white ball. “What’s that?” asked Cheryl.

“That is the spider’s egg nest. She is getting ready to have babies.”

Because the spider was a mother, Cheryl was not as fast to ask me to kill it as is often the case when we come across spiders. So I placed the spider on a fence post and continued on our way.

“Cheryl, have you ever read the story ‘Charlotte’s Web’?”

“Yes it is one of my favorites.”

“Mine too,” I replied as we spent the remainder of our time talking about spiders, rats, barns and humongous spinach leaves. 

When students damp off

The idea for this blog and GroHappy are founded on three main principles:

• Happy people are more important than perfect plants
• All gardening/nature activities should be joyful
• There are no failures in the garden

This last point is very important as students (and teachers) can learn and grow from observing the complex interactions between plants and nature. If you are honest with your self, you come to accept that the garden is full of unanticipated surprises, both good and bad. While this point has never been lost on me after playing in the garden for decades, it has been harder to accept as a fledgling horticultural therapist.

My success stories, which have been written about on this blog, are also counterbalanced by those with less uplifting conclusions. I’m not discussing random incidents when a child becomes recalcitrant or willful. Nor events in the garden when a student decides they don’t want to work in the garden in a given day. Or when a crop fails (see GroHappy rule three.) Such happenings are part of the ebb and flow of the mentor/student relationship that comes with the territory. But there are a few times when students will damp off, much like some of the spinach I planted less than a month ago.

One of my favorite students is Seymour, whom I wrote about in a prior post. Seymour is an unusually bright child with a variety of challenges that Green Chimney’s is addressing. We had hit it off from the start as he was in love with carnivorous plants and I have pretty good knowledge of them as I propagate them. This joint interest formed an initial bond and intense working relationship unlike that I had had with other children. Seymour was driven: it seems that nothing was too challenging for him as we worked through the garden with a variety of chores. His end goal: a carnivorous plant that he could call his own.

This hard work and good behavior culminated in his receiving a South African sundew plant after working successfully with me for three months. I remember his pride and happiness when I gave him the plant and built a shelf for him in his room so he could place it near a window. Seymour was doing really well and appeared responsible enough to take care of an exotic plant. It pleased me to be able to give Seymour this reward.

Then something happened. Seymour changed.

After the New Year, I couldn’t work with Seymour anymore as he had become a discipline problem. I would go to pick him up in class and he would not be there. “Seymour is having some problems,” I was told. “He can’t garden today.”

This continued for the rest of January until I was ready to leave for vacation. When I came back, Seymour was worse and had been transferred to a class for students with more intense challenges. No more jobs for Seymour. No more gardening.

I see Seymour on campus and every time he comes up to me asking, “Mr. Keller, when are you coming to pick me up for my garden job?”

“You don’t have a garden job anymore Seymour.”

“Why not?”

“You tell me. A gardening job is a privilege. Have you been behaving in school, staying out of trouble so you can be rewarded with a job?” Silence. “And what happened to the sundew I gave you? That was your baby.”

“They took it away from me.”

“Well there must have been a good reason Seymour. But I’ll make a deal with you, if you can turn things around, do your schoolwork, take care of your room and get along with your fellow students, I will then see if you can get back your old job.”

We have this conversation every week. For now, Seymour is not getting any better.

While this is the most extreme example, there are other smaller ones reminding me of the children’s fragility. A few weeks ago, George and I had been planting peas. Everything seemed fine; he worked well in the garden and was happy to be doing such a great job. A few hours later I found him curled up leaning against a wall crying inconsolably while two adults were trying to bring him out of it. Another student I recently started with missed his last two sessions; I discovered that he needed to be taken to an acute-care facility.

One of the wonderful aspects of horticultural therapy is that it takes its participants to very different places. The garden is a healing place that gives children a different and positive place to learn and grow.  Every so often, however, I am reminded that life is no garden for all of my children. 

Spiders and rats and moths, oh my!

 

If a Northerner, you must appreciate the brisk restorative nature of a crisp 20 degree winter morning as well as the comforting feeling of rolling out of your bed in the summer to a delightful 75 degree day with birds chirping in the background from an open window. OK, perhaps I am rationalizing, but regardless it is a good idea to get children out in the garden during all the seasons so they can see and feel how nature changes and how the environment is not as they imagine it should be.

In the past few months we have had a great success in the garden at Green Chimneys being able to harvest food until mid-December. Since then between the occasional snow and the constant cold, our harvest has been more mental than physical. But with the prospect of a warming weekend, we decided last Thursday to clean the snow off the hoop houses. We had to do this before and it was a big hit with the kids as they lifted hunks of snow, made snow angels and had a good time in addition to working hard.

My first charge, David, had done this before and he was up to go outside rather than to seed yet another flat. Thursday was an ideal winter day. It was sunny and windless with a temperature a little under 30 degrees. We attempted to open the padlock to the garden, but as it was frozen we had to enter through the handicap entrance that was recently built on the side of the garden.

The garden seemed quiet and lifeless as everything was covered with an undulating layer of smooth white snow that was marred only by the few animals that had scurried around the landscape leaving undistinguished footprints. Dried heads of dill as well as a few sunflowers were the only reminders of past crops.

When we opened up the shed, a white moth fluttered out not realizing that its prior home was a much better place to be. We retrieved a set of shovels and started to clear the snow off the hoops. The snow that had rested on the top of the hoops had started to melt from the heat and came off in icy clumps. But soon we were able to get all the snow off and wanted to see how well the lettuce and mustard greens were doing. Upon pulling off the tarp we were greeted by a rat.

It was as surprised as we were. The hoop house is not a bad place if you are a rat. This one contains  left over greens, drips of water from the melting snow and a warmer dwelling than one would have under or in a log.

It scampered around looking for a place to hide, only finding hard ground or soft snow to tunnel through. It was scared.

“Let’s kill it!,” yelled David.

“With what?” I said, remembering the episode at my house when my wife said that if I had a gun I would have been able to shoot the rat that had taken up residence under our bed while we were on vacation.  “We have shovels,” replied David.

“Let’s just let it alone because we could hurt it rather than kill it, which would be cruel,” I replied. I have never been a big hunter and the idea of flailing around in the snow with a shovel and a rat had all the makings of a comic disaster. We put back the fabric and started to clean off other hoops.

My next child, Charles, was interested in seeing how well the carrots were doing. As it was later in the day and the raised beds were warming, the greens were beginning to re-hydrate though the ground was still like a rock. In pulling off the Agribon fabric draped over the plastic hoops, I noticed a brown spider that was clinging to the underside of the cloth.

I thought it was dead but after a few minutes it started to twitch and move around. I felt bad that I woke it up as it will need to find another place to settle in for the winter.

As I was looking at the spider, Charles was trying to dig out a carrot. The ground was still very frozen even though the carrot tops and surrounding weeds were hydrating and greening up. They looked very alive and tempting. The carrots currently in the garden, if you can remove them, are very sweet. Storing them in the frozen soil causes their starch to be converted to sugar, thus making them increasingly sweeter as the season stretches on.

Charles knew this and was becoming very frustrated at not being able to get a carrot. I told Charles that he needed to be patient, but with any hope evaporating for success he soon was on the verge of tears. I needed to think of something fast.

“Charles, let’s look for a carrot at the edge of the garden. If the carrot is close enough to the boards, perhaps the sun has had the opportunity to melt some of the soil that is holding it into place.”

We were able to find such a carrot quickly and I was able to insert a trowel between the boards and the carrot. I wiggled it around a bit and then gave the carrot a tug. No good. I then pushed the trowel through the soil on the other side of the carrot and was able to loosen it enough so that Charles could pull it out.

“I got a carrot!” Charles was beside himself as his emotions altered from agony to ecstasy.  He said that he was going to bring the carrot home so that his mother could make a healthy soup for the family. Even though he was tempted, he didn’t try to eat it. 

There are still plenty of carrots in the garden that we can harvest once the weather breaks. I just hope the rat (and it’s buddies) doesn’t get to them first.