GODSTUFF

THE CONSTANT GARDENER:

IN THE GARDEN, HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

Happy belated Beltane!

What? Not ringing any bells?

Beltane is the ancient Celtic festival, falling on or around May 1, that celebrates the beginning of the summer pastoral season, the start of the fertile planting period, the beginning of the hope of things to come.

Most modern Celts, like myself, don’t celebrate Beltane unless, perhaps, they consider themselves pagans. I do not, but this week, as I’ve watched the heirloom tomato plants, myrtle and herbs I put in the ground over the weekend take root, I can certainly appreciate the spirit that Beltane represents.

Because I’m taking a break from daily reporting to write a couple of books, for the first time in my adult life, I have the pleasure of spending more time outside than indoors. For the last 18 years, every spring I’ve been inside a classroom or an office, experiencing the change of seasons under the pallid glower of fluorescent lights.

These days, I’m in the yard more than in the house, where I keep my official “home office.” Thanks to the miracle of wireless technology, I am able to write outside (as I am now) under the branches of our mulberry tree, Henry.

And as I sit at the patio table typing on my laptop, I can almost see the young tomatoes-to-be perking up in the sun, their thin stalks morphing from flaccid to turgid with just a little water and real sunlight. Like magic.

Gardening is an inherently hopeful endeavor. You put the seeds or the seedlings in the ground, water and watch, hoping that leaves will leaf, flowers will blossom, and fruit will appear, sometime in the future.

This got me thinking of one of my beloved college professors, Rolland Hein, now an emeritus professor of literature at Wheaton College. Hein was, to my mind, all tweed and Faulkner until one summer evening more years ago than I care to mention, when I saw the august professor dressed in a gardener’s jump suit, wild-haired and sweating as he worked in his immense garden that abutted the yard of one of my roommate’s parents’ home in Wheaton.

I was shocked to see Hein in a setting so viscerally and dramatically different from an austere classroom at Blanchard Hall — kind of like a third-grader who runs into her teacher at the supermarket. I was simultaneously kerfuffled and intrigued by Hein’s agrarian alter ego.

Recently, I watched for a second or third time that marvelous film “The Constant Gardener,” which had much more to do with justice than gardening, and thought of Hein, who wrote a lovely tome a few years ago called Growing With My Garden: Thoughts on Tending the Soil and the Soul. Combined with my new preoccupation with all things outdoorsy/gardening-y, I rang the professor and asked if I could come for a visit.

Walking the grounds of his home in St. Charles, where Hein moved with his wife, Dorothy, in 1996, I was astounded at the vigor with which he approaches gardening. It is not a hobby for Hein. Gardening is a passion.

“It would be difficult to live without it,” Hein told me, as we walked through one of four huge gardens that flank his home. “Such an infinite variety of things. And I’m always trying something different.”

As we strolled and chatted, catching up after more than 15 years, the professor pointed out beds of day lilies, Russian sage and Oriental poppies. More than 3,000 daffodils dance across his massive garden that also includes apple, plum and white peach trees, a grape arbor and unplanted beds awaiting the arrival of hundreds of dahlias — his specialty.

“A person falls in love with nature, with plants, with the process of growing and seeing things go from seed to flower,” Hein said as a lone incandescent blue dragonfly buzzed our heads. “It teaches you something about life. It not only soothes the spirit, it brings a sense of peace and satisfaction. It’s kind of hard to put into words. . . . It’s medicine for the spirit.”

It is then, seated at a table in his greenhouse stuffed with pink bougainvillea, phaleonopsis orchids and ginger plants with their scarlet shoots reaching toward the sky, that Hein does something I remember fondly from my days as his student. He recites a poem from memory.

Robert Frost’s “Prayer for Spring” is what has come to the professor’s mind on this particularly spectacular spring afternoon, and he begins to intone the words of the poem in his low, velvety rumble.

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Dahlias are the professor’s favorite flower. He’s something of an expert at cultivating the blossoms he calls “the king of flowers.” What is it about these bushy blooms that arrive in late summer, even though he begins readying the tubers for planting in his basement in February?

“The dahlia responds to nurture, and you can grow them large and impressive, but you’ve got to dis-bud and dis-branch, and fertilize rightly, and water rightly. It’s kind of a temperamental flower,” Hein says. “And a person is not always successful. But you keep trying.”

ADDENDUM: From Mrs. God Girl
Thought I’d share a note I received from my mother this morning in response to the column above. Wish I had a photo of Poppy Page (my grandfather) handy to post, but sadly, I don’t.

Hi Cath,
I thought it was great. It reminded me of my father, your grandfather, who loved to garden & for his day had beautiful gardens each year in his backyard on Hope St. in Springdale. And dahlias were his favorites. He always had beautiful ones. God gave him a hobby that took him through tough times in his life. He spent hours outdoors just gently coddling the ground and everything he put in it. Neighbors were always amazed at what he did.
Just recently in Bible class an assignment was to think of someone in life you admired. My Dad came to mind. When I thought of him I recalled his gentleness, his love and kindness to me displayed in so many simple ways. His ability to make any outdoor spot of ground produce something lovely was something to behold and remember always. He literally spent hours outdoors in the misting rain working in his garden. He was so proud of it in his unassuming and gentle way.
When June comes around I think of the beautiful roses he had in 2 long rows of bushes way down in the back part of the yard. I always think of my Dad when spring and summer especially. He always made whatever was around him blossom in a special way.
Just thought I’d share the above with you. Thank God for those special people, like Professor Hein and my Dad, the ones that could do wonders with small seeds, that God has placed in our lives.
Love, Mom