The importance of fairy godmothers

Forsythia and daffodils in the children’s garden near Union Temple.

Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

Yesterday, there was an article about Mermaid City Flowers in my local newspaper! I of course shared it immediately with those nearest and dearest to me, including Marchele. When I talk about my garden heritage, Brooklyn figures largely in that story. Arriving in the states as a small child, I was lucky enough to find myself living directly across the street from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. My upstairs neighbor, Marchele, was an activist who, among many other things, founded a community garden steps from our apartment building. She was also tremendously involved with the horticultural community at large. Her kids and my sibling and I are all about the same age and nearly immediately formed a large roaming troop of children who could be found in the park, the museum, or most likely, the garden. It was with Marchele that I first planted daffodils, and experienced the joys of eating radish freshly plucked from the soil at the BBG children’s garden. In the gardens we worked, we learned new vegetables, like kohlrabi, new words, like ‘compost’ and how to sprinkle seeds in neat little rows. And 35+ years later, it’s still Marchele who sends me seeds and bulbs, gently offering advice for their care and heartily offering advice for my own.

Me, in red, with my brother and neighborsibs in the Japanese Garden at BBG.

Marchele in a rose garden of her design.