This is my attempt at "wildcrafting," or collecting, from the wilds of my garden, which contains a surprising number of interesting and colorful things for this time of year. You'd be amazed. I found a stray rosebud or two, some blooming lavender, a handful of hardy black-eyed susans, some climbing aster, a stalk or two of pineapple sage (with its outstanding red blooms), lots of sage, rosemary and something new I tried this year, curry plant. It looks like a bleached-out version of rosemary and it smells strongly of curry. I put it all together in a vase on my desk at work. It's wonderful, especially if your workplace is in bankruptcy! This idea of collecting out back isn't a new one, but I'm working on a story about "wildcrafting," a term that apparently came into being during the Depression in the 1930s (makes it even more relevant today) in Appalachia and refers to the practice of going up in the mountains and forests to collect mosses, greens and other plants to eat, make into medicine or crafts, for personal use or selling. This is illegal in many places, including Fairmount Park, so put your pruners away. But it's perfectly legal and lots of fun in the back yard, especially at holiday time. Story coming on 11/27, as you're digesting a load of Thanksgiving turkey and gearing up for Round 2 at Christmas. 

This is one of the more peculiar sights in autumn - the giant chartreuse fruit of the Osage orange tree, seen here in an artistic pile at Jenkins Arboretum on Saturday. It was near closing time, which would be sunset, though we wondered how anyone knew when the sun would set since there was no sun or setting to be seen. Just gray skies and increasing darkness. These fruits are weird as all get out, but aren't they interesting? The Osage orange's botanical name is Maclura pomifera, and it's a member of the mulberry family, named for an American geologist, William Maclure. The common name for both tree and fruit is hedge apple, apparently because it used to be used as a natural hedge. The fruit is inedible for humans but squirrels apparently like it, and I can attest to the fact that the fruit stays on the tree even after the leaves have fallen. (It was a sight not unlike the lighted Christmas balls in Rittenhouse Square.) The tree is also known for its breathtaking thorns, which might be a deterrent to those squirrels who can't wait for the fruit to drop. It certainly would've deterred cattle looking to cross into a neighbor's field. The Osage part of the name comes from the Native American tribe and the orange-peel scent of the skin of the fruit. It being so close to sunset, however that was being figured, we didn't get close enough to tell.    

Tools are cool - old ones, I mean. These are sheep shears belonging to Harold Sweetman, who heads up Jenkins Arboretum in Devon but grew up on a farm in Colorado. His grandfather raised sheep and his father, an entomologist, grew small cash crops and ran a plant nursery, greenhouse, and florist business before taking a job at Scott Arboretum in Swarthmore. Ultimately, he became Jenkins' first director. Harold recalls using these sheep shears to clip grass when he was a kid. That memory, and the simple, utilitarian beauty, of these old implements helps explain the reverence old tools often elicit. I think of things like this on summer Saturdays, when I'm awakened by the roar of weed wackers and gasoline-powered lawn mowers, and in autumn, when humans wielding leaf-blowers are out in force. (This is a city neighborhood with have small yards and sidewalks. I can only imagine the din in the 'burbs.) Harold talks about well-made tools designed to do one thing very well. Like the old shovel in my garage. It has a with a weathered, wooden handle, thick old blade and Y handle. My guess is it's been left in the garage through a succession of owners that led to us. One family lived here for more than half a century; there followed two owners interested only in flipping the house. Till it got to us. (We're not flippers.) Guess when we go, we should leave it, like everyone else, in the garage and hope that the next family will take the time to appreciate it. 

Philadelphia is a vibrant horticultural center, with much history and many thriving gardening organizations, public gardens and traditions. But it was even more of a hotbed in the 18th and 19th centuries - starting with botanist John Bartram, moving on to seedsman David Landreth, continuing with Henry Dreer, who introduced the hanging basket, and many others. This year is the Landreth Seed Co.'s 225th birthday, a milestone that finds the company in the capable hands of Barbara and Peter Melera. Although the firm began in Philadelphia at 12th and Market (then High) Streets, eventually it moved to Baltimore. When the Meleras bought it six years ago, they moved everything to New Freedom, Pa., outside York. Baltimore's crime was a factor in their decision to move, Barb says. Now they're in farm country, trying to make a go of a business that, when they took over, was 95 percent focused on selling grass seed. Nothing wrong with that, except there's a lot of competition and profit margins are low. So Barb decided - for she is the motor that drives this engine - that she wanted to get back to David Landreth's original mission, which was to "find and sell good quality American seed and help Americans to be better gardeners." She's building the business back up - it'll never be as big as it once was and Barb has no desire to create a monster - as a place for heirloom vegetable, flower and herb seeds. I had a long visit with her last week. She walked me around the 7,200-square-foot warehouse, which used to house racing cars, let me poke around the drawers and bins full of petticoat daffodils that date to 1629 and other vintage treasures, and she shared old leatherbound volumes of Landreth seed catalogues. Barb couldn't be more excited. A former venture capitalist, an MIT grad who grew up wanting to be an astronaut, she's not to be messed with! And although she has no Landreth DNA, you'd be hard pressed to find a better stand-in. Story to come on Friday.  

Personally, I like garlic breath. Never had a problem with it, although I know people who can't tolerate even one clove. So it was exciting to head for Wyck, the historic house in Germantown, for a lesson in heirloom garlic that included a tasting. This is Landon Jefferies, Wyck's farm manager, planting cloves of 'German White' and 'Keith's Rocambole,' two delicious varieties that are very popular at farmer's markets, including Wyck's. I never thought much about all this until I began reading about how Chinese growers have overtaken the American market. Growing conditions in China are in the news consistently, and not in a good way, so this trend isn't something to celebrate. Now, having tasted the garlic Landon grows, I hope I never have to use the supermarket type again. What flavor! Landon had baked some samples (slathered with olive oil) till the cloves oozed out of the blossom. We smooshed it on small bread rounds. It was heavenly. I've since bought several blossoms to plant this weekend. You just place the cloves, base side down, into a hole two inches deep and cover. Landon recommends against planting supermarket garlic, which has often been treated to prevent sprouting, probably been sprayed with pesticides and stored for months or longer. If you find garlic at a farmer's market or somewhere else that sells locally grown products, you can plop it in the ground around here till about Thanksgiving. You know this stuff will grow in our region, and you know it's fresh. Happy garlic breath! And hope you enjoy my story about Landon and the wonderful world of heirloom garlic in the paper tomorrow.

Meet Scarface, the latest Halloween pumpkin to be mauled by squirrels. This is not a rare occurrence. There's quite a bit of chatter on the blogosphere about it and several preventive measures offered up ... everything from smearing your squash with tabasco sauce and spraying it with rodent repellent to scattering blood meal about and who knows what else. I say, what a waste of beautiful hot sauce and who wants to handle rodent repellent or even blood meal? Scarface appears to be weeping, but it was just this morning's rain. Honestly, squirrels have no shame. I know there are those out there who think they're cute and enjoy feeding them peanuts (roasted better than raw), but being a city girl, I have mostly negative experiences with them. I don't understand their purpose on earth beyond annoying me and lots of others.

They take chunks out of my tomatoes and steal my ripening figs. They dig up my tulip bulbs. Everytime I plant something they pounce on it. They tease kitties. They gorge themselves in bird feeders. They ravage my sunflowers. They even caused loud static on our telephones, an affliction that lasted days and necessitated (I kid you not) four service trips, before the phone company - duh - finally figured out that squirrels had chewed through the plastic cover on the wires. As if that had never happened before in Philadelphia!

So I say, enjoy the hot sauce yourself. Let these critters be. You'll survive. Meanwhile, Scarface's pathetic visage makes a dandy, scary touch for Halloween. 

It is with some trepidation that, for my next reportorial effort, I enter the world of orchids. (This, after tomorrow's story on seed-collecting.) I've always found them very beautiful but know little about them. Perhaps that's good. I can be a stand-in for everyone out there who's ever been intimidated by them. This morning I visited Parkside Orchid Nursery in Ottsvile, way up in northern Bucks County. It was a hike and a half to get there, but well worth it. Tom Purviance and John Salventi run the nursery, and Tom graciously gave me a tour of their five greenhouses. This is a vanda orchid, for obvious reasons a very popular kind. Have you ever seen such a purple? Vandas are a sun-loving orchid, usually bright lavender with blue undertones. This one has a pale white pattern overlaid, large blooms with flattened petals, often said to look as if it's "sprinkled with diamond dust." It was breath-taking, and I'm glad I got this photo before my lens and glasses fogged up. I have others from my visit that have that gauzy, romantic look. It was just the humidity in the greenhouse! I'll be learning a lot more about orchids in the days ahead - that's the plan anyway, so I can share it all in a story next Friday in Home & Design.

I've been paying more attention to those pesky Latin botanical names lately. This is the fault of Mark Weathington of the J.C. Raulston Arboretum, who spoke to the garden writers symposium last month in Raleigh. People with horticulture training are sticklers for this; ordinary gardeners, not so much, if at all. But the former have a point and sooner or later, if members of the latter category pursue their hobby to the point where they're actually learning something, they'll soon have to sit up and pay attention. 'Cause it makes sense and it's important. My job has a built-in tension, which is why I paid particular attention to Mark. I write for a general-interest publication that publishes stories on a huge variety of topics. We're not Gourmet magazine; come to think of it, Gourmet's not even Gourmet anymore! We're not Horticulture or Fine Gardening. And we're not Nature or Scientific American. Yet we do have readers who possess a level of sophistication in those specialties that makes them an audience for those specialized journals. Most newspaper readers are regular folks with interests we hope range from the news at the front of the paper, all the way through to the sports at the back. I'm walking a line - not wanting to turn off those at either end of the gardening spectrum. In fact, I'm wanting to engage them all. And botanical names are often the dividing line. You can usually tell how well-trained or educated someone in the garden world is by how much they rely on proper Latin nomenclature. Mark's talk began with a discussion of "rose." We all know what a rose is, right? Well, what about rose of Jericho? Rose campion? Moss rose? Rose-of-sharon, rock rose, sun rose, Lenten rose, and on and on. You get the idea. Mark suggests, on first reference, using a plant's common name with the Latin name in parens behind it and then the common name through the rest of the story. Makes sense to me. Just hope there are enough trees in the forest to accommodate all those ( )s!

This is the work-in-progress over at Morris Arboretum - phase I of a new horticultural and education complex. The hort staff is expected to move in sometime in January, a welcome development for folks who basically work in a scrum  now. This is going up at the arboretum's Bloomfield Farm, set on 75 acres across Northwestern Avenue from the 92-acre gardens. Morris also plans to add a new building for classes, conferences and private events, but that's on hold while fundraisers get busy. Tough time to be raising money, for sure.

But the good/better news at the arboretum is the big jump in attendance over the last year - 74 percent - and a similar boost in membership. There are probably a couple of reasons for this, one being the idea that more folks are looking for things to do that don't entail a long drive and a hotel. Another is Morris' "Out on a Limb" exhibit, which is a huge hit. I visited on a quiet Tuesday morning in summer, figuring the place would be empty, and was surprised to find the "tree house" packed with families. Hanging out - literally - over the Wissahickon makes me a little queasy, but it appeared I was the only one getting dizzy. More power to everyone else.