Why did I say it?
Sy Becker just kept nodding his head while I rattled off flowers: petunias, cosmos, butterfly bush, irises, um… filependula, um …daisies, um… peonies… I had already said "um" six times and couldn’t think of any more names so I told him "I must have a hundred different varieties of plants in there." I could hear the horticultural police coming: "We have a correction to make. Mrs. Hamel claims to have over 100 varieties of plants in her Moon Garden, but we count only 63."
It all started when I answered the phone.
"Administration and Finance"
"Is Cindy there?"
"This is Cindy."
"This is Sy Becker."
His voice is familiar and I say "hi" casually, as if he and I have spoken many times. Then it sinks in. Sy Becker, the "Look at the Movies" guy from TV22. I work in the Vice Chancellor’s Office at UMass. It’s not unusual to have reporters call, so I grab my pencil and my "while you were out" pad and get ready to take a message. But he is not calling to find out how long the Old Chapel renovation will take.
He wants to interview me in my yard. He is reading a letter he received from my friend Suzanne, something about a brook and flowers and a garden "encased in brick, crescent shaped, planted with white flowers". I am thinking "Yes, this yard sounds magical. I wonder whose it is?"
The garden was mine. It turns out my friend and garden fan had heard Channel 22’s call for "interesting local gardens" and had written them about mine. Before I know it we have scheduled an interview for the day after Memorial Day. I had already scheduled a vacation in late May to get the spring yardwork done. That gives me a week and a half to get ready.
I call Suzanne and thank her for putting a little excitement into my life. Weeding and digging will be much more fun knowing that cameras will be doing close-ups of every little thing. My family doesn’t really understand my fascination with gardening so when I tell them that Sy Becker is coming to look at my gardens they just roll their eyes.
Once the novelty wears off I start to wonder what I have gotten myself into. My yard isn’t that nice. Sometimes cars stop by and the people inside point at the yard, but maybe they were looking at the pile of tools that are always sitting on my front step. Or saying "Look how overgrown she let that beebalm get."
I decide to concentrate on the Moon Garden. It is a 30-foot wide circle containing a crescent shape that is planted with white flowered and/or gray-foliaged plants. Gardeners might find it interesting. In late May, before the annuals have started to fill in the gaps, the flowers in the Moon Garden are a little sparse, especially for a TV appearance. So I decide to go shopping. After a trip to the nursery there is a pile of plants in the driveway: petunias, salvia, filependula, catmint, just about every plant that has white flowers and is ready to bloom, plus two artemesias for the gray foliage and a few plants to fill in the other gardens. My husband David claims that I am bringing in "ringers", but I have read enough garden magazines to know that it is standard practice to bring in new plants when you are expecting visitors. The horticultural police won’t get me on this one.
It took me one whole day to weed, plant, add compost and water the Moon Garden, and it looks better than ever. I spent the rest of the week doing my usual spring chores and making sure the rest of the yard looks nice. As I work I imagine the interview questions and practice my answers.
Why did you decide to plant a moon garden?
I was thinking about if for awhile but I found out that my name, Cynthia, is Greek for Moon Goddess so I had to do it.
How did you lay out the design?
I used some stakes, string and a hose to get it just right.
How long did it take?
Two years to finish getting the bricks in. Three to fill it with plants.
(If Sy Becker asks me the Latin name for any of my plants, I want to be ready so I study my Taylor’s Guide to Perennials.)
My children don’t want to be around for the interview, but they are good about doing some extra things around the house when I ask them. Usually, I do all the yardwork myself, except the mowing, but after a week of being awake every morning at six and doing physical labor all day, my arms are getting tired. My son agrees to do some hoeing, for a price.
I spend the last morning doing one more inspection, deadheading daffodils, watering the new plants, fluffing up the soil here and there, in my official gardener’s uniform: khaki pants and a denim shirt. At least that’s what all the gardeners wear when Victory Garden comes to visit. There’s some lemonade in the ‘fridge in case the crew is thirsty. Everything is perfect.
The TV22 van pulls into the driveway and there is Sy Becker himself, standing in my front yard, waving. He introduces me to Mike, the camera guy. I guess he travels with a small crew. We chat about gazing globes while Mike gets his camera ready. Sy can’t wait to see my gardens so I start by showing him my hummingbird/butterfly garden. It’s only in it’s second year and I can tell he is not overly impressed.
"The letter said something about crescents." So we head out to the Moon Garden. Mike is quietly walking around, taping from different angles while Sy asks me a few questions.
"Why don’t more people have Moon Gardens?"
I don’t really know but I say something about them having just white flowers and maybe people don’t want to devote a whole garden to one color.
"What kind of flowers do I have?"
Good thing I did my homework ..
Sy is very nice. He has the same radio voice and personality even when the camera is off. It’s like talking to the TV set.
It’s clear he is not a gardener and I get the feeling he is a little disappointed with what he sees. But he likes the brook and asks Mike to get a shot of it while he stands near the water holding the microphone. They are ready now and Sy asks me the same questions but on-camera this time. My answers are OK except that when I am naming off flowers my mind went blank. That’s when I said it. " I must have a hundred different varieties of plants in there."
We are done. As we are walking back to the driveway, Sy Becker tells me not to worry, they will edit the film so that the garden looks nice. (I wonder what that means?) and it will be on TV22 between 5:00-6:30. After they pull out of the driveway I realize they never even looked at the rest of the yard and I didn’t get a chance to tell my Moon Goddess story.
By 4:00 I’m getting a little nervous so David and I take a walk around the block. By the time we get back it’s almost 5:00. We have the VCR set to record so we can show all our friends. There are a lot of segments in an hour and a half of local news. It’s 6:20 and I’m convinced that when they got back to the studio the producer was even less impressed with my garden than Sy was and they decided not to bother. At least all my friends won’t hear me say "um" six times and no one will ever know that I exaggerated just a bit.
The sports segment ends and there on the TV screen is the wind ornament that my brothers and sister gave me for my birthday. Dan Elias is saying something about a Belchertown gardener, after this message. The commercial break takes forever, then there are some nice shots of the Moon Garden, the brook, even a butterfly on the wood hyacinths. There’s me talking about dark flowers disappearing and white flowers coming forward when it gets dark. They cut back to the flowers while I am talking, then back to Dan Elias. The whole thing was about 90 seconds long. But the garden looked pretty good, there was a nice shot of my gargoyle, I didn’t sound too stupid and they edited out the "ums".
Then I hear Dan Elias saying "She loves her Moon Garden with over 100 varieties of white flowers. " Uh oh.