Jill Churchill - Mulch Ado About Nothing

When they got to the backyard, there was a cacophony of barking from inside the house. Ursula opened the back door and shouted, "QUIET!" The barking subsided.

The "garden" was much like Jane imagined it would be. Completely wild and disorderly. Someflat rocks that looked suspiciously like tombstones lay about, forming rough paths. Somewhere genealogists were wondering where their great-great-aunt Mildred's final memorial had gone.

There was no grass at all, just a jumble of plants and trees and bushes. Mostly too dry. There were holes in the ground where apparently useless plants had been yanked out. And there was an overpowering smell of decay.

“That's the compost pile you smell," Ursula said proudly. "I'm surprised I didn't see one in your yard, Dr. Eastman. It's the heart of garden- ing.”

just couldn't smell it," he said. "It's hidden behind the pines. And compost piles should never have an odor like this unless you're putting pet waste in it.

Jane wasn't going to risk breaking her other foot taking the full tour, and looked around for a place to sit down. There were two iron benches near the house, but they were white with bird droppings. There must have been about fourteen bird feeders hanging from the eaves. Most of them were empty or had an inch or two residue of mildewed seeds. Only the hummingbird feeder looked fresh, but it didn't have any customers. Jane propped her armpits on the crutches and looked around. She noticed that here and there, dusty electrical wires emerged from the ground and led into one of the areas. Probably some sort of lighting Ursula could turn on at night.

There were a few neat things in the garden when you studied it. A peculiar iron sculpture about four feet high that looked like a bunch of rusted airplane propellers gone awry caught her eye and whimsy.

A statue of a woman, nearly life-sized and graceful, was gently turning from copper to green. Morning glories had climbed her and wreathed her upturned head. Jane wondered if this was coincidental or a product of training them that way.

A stand of bachelor buttons in a deep, eye-watering blue stood solid and proud among a sprinkling of towering bright yellow cosmos with lovely ferny foliage. A tilted, broken wheelbarrow spilled out masses of pink geraniums.

It was, if nothing else, a messy garden with a lot of blighted areas among spots of true beauty.

She heard a little cough behind her and turned to see Charles Jones watching her. "Aren't you going to walk around and look?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't want to go home with ticks just to see a bunch of rubble."

“But sometimes rubble is good — in small doses. Look at that big piece of egg-and-dart molding among the pink petunias. That's a good combination," Jane persisted.

“It's okay, I guess. If you like that sort of clutter," he said, dismissing Jane's view.

Of course he would hate a garden like this, Jane thought. He was so tidy and crisp and somehow disgustingly clean. She assumed he was a bachelor who would consider sex to be messy and disorganized.

“Is it," she said, "that you dislike the garden, or Ursula, or both?"

“Both," he said without hesitation. "If I lived next door to this… mess, I'd complain to the city, put up a solid fence, or just move away. Gardens should be things of beauty and precision. Like Dr. Eastman's. Though I don't believe he is really the gardener there."

“Not high on the chaos theory, are you?" Jane said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

He just stared at her with confusion.

Shelley returned from her tour picking burrs off her slacks. "Interesting place," she said to Charles and Jane. "Can you see the waterfall from here?" She turned and peered back out into the yard. "No, I guess you can't. It's… interesting. A wall of clear violently colored marbles with tiny lights behind them here and there. The water absolutely shimmers over it. Ursula says she's done all this work entirely by herself."

“Obviously," Charles Jones said. If his face hadn't been so utterly bland, Jane would have sworn he was sneering.

The rest of the crowd was drifting back toward the patio. Geneva Jackson was smiling slightly, shaking her head in apparent disbelief. Stefan Eckert was trying to pull an especially clingy vine with thorns off his golf shirt. Arnold Waring simply looked stunned, and Miss Martha was grin‑ ning as she made scribbles in a notebook. Maybe she was the only one besides Jane who saw interesting things about Ursula's garden.

When everyone started thanking Ursula for the tour, however insincerely, she exclaimed, "Oh, but you haven't seen — or heard — everything yet. It's a proven fact that plants thrive on music. Wait here.”

She dashed into the house, and a moment later, there was a blast of noise. Not music.

“I know it doesn't sound terribly nice together," Ursula said, reemerging from her house. She had to bellow to be heard. "But different plants need different kinds of music. Perennials, for the most part, prefer opera. I can't imagine why, but after long experimentation, I realized it's their favorite. The cornflowers and the hostas like marches. You wouldn't think they had that in common, would you? They're not the least like each other.”

Everybody just gawked. Only Arnold Waring, holding a cupped hand behind his right ear, was making a serious polite effort to hear what she was saying.

“And the columbines love rock music," it sounded as if she was saying.

“We'll assemble in class tomorrow morning," Dr. Eastman screamed at the group, "and discuss hybridizing. Then go… where, Mrs. Nowack?"

“To Miss Winstead's garden and Mr. Jones's," Shelley shouted, consulting her schedule.

As they escaped the noise and headed for thefront yard, Ursula caught up with Jane. "Where are you off to?" Ursula asked.

Jane, who felt honor-bound to let the others go first instead of having her hold them back, was ready with an invented errand. "Another meet- ing.”

“All three of you?"

“It's a library thing," Miss Winstead, who was just in front of Jane, said over her shoulder. "And we're already late. Jane, get in the van so we can go. Ms. Appledorn, I've enjoyed your garden immensely. It's clear that you love it.”

They sped off before Ursula could invite herself along, and left her smiling at them.

When they reached the Chinese restaurant they'd selected, a woman customer who was opening the door held it for Jane. "What did you do to yourself?" she asked, as Jane narrowly missed cracking the stranger's ankle with the left crutch.

“Just a hang-gliding accident," Jane said. "Bad landing, I'm afraid."

“How fascinating. You landed on your foot, I guess."

“No, actually a tree broke my fall, but I got the foot caught in a crotch of the tree and had to hang there upside down for ages before someone got me down."

“I can't wait to tell my husband this," the woman said. "He thinks hang gliding sounds like fun."

“Elephants, now hang gliding," Shelley muttered as they took a table.

“But she enjoyed the story," Jane said. "I hate to disappoint people.”

Miss Martha smiled broadly. "I admire your imagination. How did you really do it?"

“Tripped over a curbing," Jane admitted. "At Julie Jackson's house."

“What were you doing there? Are you friends of hers?"

“We barely know her," Shelley explained. "Some flowers for her were accidently delivered to Jane, who has the same address but a different street name, and we were taking them over to where they belonged.”

They ordered their drinks and looked over the list of what was on today's buffet. Shelley asked Miss Winstead if she knew Julie Jackson.

“Not well," Miss Winstead said. "Years ago she occasionally did some research at the library, but most often, I suppose, she used the university facilities. I haven't laid eyes on her for years. Now research is at the tip of the fingers for anyone who knows how to search the Internet. Especially for scientific or government publications."