JULY/AUGUST 1998

Joan Murphy just wanted to sign up for a subscription because she had seen a neighbor's copy of our magazine and thought a regional approach to gardening made sense. She didn't notice that beautiful Lawn-Boy mower in the back of our booth at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show. It was the prize in a drawing for those who subscribed during that show and several other spring shows.

Instead of a blindfold draw, our resident computer guru Ed Jones used a software program to randomly select the name-Joan's. When she received a phone call that she had won, she was skeptical-where was the kicker, the sales pitch, the come on? Finally, we arrived on a rainy afternoon to deliver the prize. She believed.

We had great fears all during the promotion that whoever won the mower would live on the 43rd floor of a high-rise. In meeting Joan, we were relieved to find that not only did she have a lawn, but that hers was immaculate-not a weed in sight and the edges neatly trimmed. Joan lives in Oak Forest, a southern suburb that encourages home gardeners with neighborhood beautification awards. Joan has won the distinction six years in a row and has spread her gardening wisdom along her street. The neighbor across the street has won an award the last two years.

We are greatly indebted to the folks at Lawn-Boy Inc. for supplying the mower, a 6.5-horsepower GoldPro series mulching mower featuring the new low-emission, low-smoke DuraForce engine. Mike Ferrara of Axiom Marketing Communications in Minneapolis helped us with the promotion and was able to come to Chicago to speak at the Flower Show. Maybe next year we can help Mike get a better time slot-he had the last talk on the final Sunday. We'll work on it.

Simplicity seems lost in our complicated world but not when we wander into our yards. Gardening is the great antidote to a complicated world. Consider what has taken place to get that plant to where it is in this high season of the gardening calendar. A seed germinated, sent roots into soil for an anchor, then formed a flower that becomes a seedpod for renewing the cycle. It gives perspective to the enormities of the human-dominated world around us.

Simple plants are what survive in my greenhouse-succulents preferably, those that can sustain forgetful watering patterns. Several years ago, at the end of an ordering session from a seed catalogue, I added a packet of a cactus that had such a glowing writeup and photo that I had to try it. Several seeds came up, two plants survived, and over the years neither succumbed. Nor did they bloom.

Then one day this spring, I poked around among the foliage and saw a pink splotch up against the glazing in the back of the greenhouse. There at the end of a three-foot-long winding stem was an enormous flower, the size of a fist. Within a few days, the bloom collapsed and began to wither but lo and behold, the other plant was getting ready to provide a reprise on the end of one of its many stems. This one bloomed a pure white.

The lesson to be learned is patience. Gardening teaches us every day to slow down and observe the gradual, unique progression that each species provides. I didn't give up on those cactus plants and they rewarded me with blooms that, while short-lived, make up for all the worrying and repotting and heat expended to warm their home over several winters.