November / December 1997

The familiar lament as winter settles in around us is "where did the summer go?" Our gardens were just starting to look the way we would like them to when the inevitable leveling force of nature took over and poof! The zucchini collapsed, the petunias stretched for all they were worth, and the gaillardia looked so ratty that it had to be cut back to its roots.

Summer goes by so fast because it is so busy. For us at Chicagoland Gardening that means trying to see gardens and get things photographed and appearing at events like the Sheffield Garden Walk. For garden writers around the country, the end of summer always holds another great treat-the annual symposium of the Garden Writers Association of America. At these events, we get to see gardens in other parts of the country, compare notes with colleagues (there's nothing quite like the laments of small publishers as we bemoan our collective fate) and hear some of the best speakers in American horticulture. We were even treated to a lecture by Adrian Bloom, president of Blooms of Bressingham, the English geniuses who bring new perennial varieties to market.

Boston was the site of our meeting this year and it lived up to its reputation as a fine gardening mecca. We visited the Arnold Arboretum, the Fenway Victory Garden-the oldest community garden in the country and virtually in the shadows of the famous ballpark where the Red Sox play (they were out of town unfortunately)-Mount Auburn Cemetery, and the home garden of Tom Cooper, editor of Horticulture magazine.

The real thrill was saved for the last afternoon of the conference when five busloads of us descended on the home garden that "The Victory Garden" fans had been viewing for many years-although our guide explained that no group had ever been invited in to see it in person. As I gazed across the perfectly manicured raised beds in the vegetable garden, Michael Leach, garden writer for the Columbus Dispatch, came up with the clichÔø‡s before I could: "Valhalla. Holy Grail." There was Roger Swain at his familiar perch talking with us the same way he would talk to the camera that films the PBS series at the home of Executive Producer Russell Morash and his wife Marian, the cooking half of the show. They were even gracious enough to come outside and watch over this trampling herd. I can trace my interest in gardening back to the original host of the show, Jim Crockett, and the book by the same name that he wrote with Morash's photography.

As I wheeled into the reception that precedes GWAA's annual awards banquet, I was greeted by Lynn Steiner, editor of the Minnesota Horticulturist, who seemed near tears after looking at the award-winning magazine entries, most of which belonged to the New York-based Garden Design. "How can we compete?" she asked. With the current judging criteria, the regional magazines probably can't. But we can present our readers with something far more valuable-solutions tailored to our climate, to our soil conditions, gardens we can get to in a short car ride and advertisers we can visit for great plants that don't get lost in the mail. Plus we can aspire to be as good as Garden Design.

Meanwhile, get ready for the holidays with our articles on poinsettias, my meanderings through the always-changing world of computer gardening, and our annual gift guide. It's always an enjoyable process to sort through the world of paraphernalia that's out there for us gardeners.