Memberships may be purchased at the door for the Members Only Sale Thursday April 4 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.  The general sale is free and open to the public from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, April 5, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday April 6 and 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sunday April 7.

A volunteer army of knowledgeable plantsmen and women along with BBG staff members will be on hand to offer advice and suggestions from landscaping with trees and shrubs to choosing container combinations.  Vegetables, including heirloom varieties, and herbs provide opportunities for planting a home garden summer salad bar.  Native plants, genetically suited to Alabama’s sometimes unpredictable climactic conditions, are increasingly popular with gardeners.  Ferns, hostas, roses, and exotic tropicals will be featured along with annuals, perennials, daylilies, irises and climbers.

For more information, as well as lists of available plants, visit the Birmingham Botanical Gardens website:  bbgardens.org/springplantsale.

Gardening with children can be a family adventure.

Young shoppers enjoy choosing plants at the BBG Spring Garden Sale.

Local garden shops offer a wide variety of gifts for gardeners, children, and anyone on the Christmas shopping list who enjoys colorful, seasonal decorations.  Sample our photographic shopping spree for great gift ideas.  Thanks to photographer Virginia Jones (www.virginiajonesphotography.com) for sharing some of the images.

For the birds:

Tools of the trade:

For gardens, inside and outside the house:

Deck the halls:

Books and tasty treats:

Bobby Horton and Dolores Hydock, two of the South’s best storytellers.

Following up the success of last year’s sold-out performance, Bobby Horton and Dolores Hydock return to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens December 9 for Southern Tales:  Holiday Songs and Stories at the Gardens.

Horton, the country’s leading expert on the music of the American Civil War, and Hydock, Alabama’s premier storyteller, provide a perfect pairing of music and tales that are entertaining, heartwarming and sometimes poignant for an audience-interactive family afternoon.

This year’s performance is the third annual in the Southern Tales series, and Bobby and Dolores will pay tribute to the memory of their beloved friend Kathryn Tucker Windham, who headlined the first holiday program before her death in June of 2011.

Each bringing over thirty years experience on local and national stages, Horton and Hydock burst with spontaneity that belies hours of practice time fine tuning the family friendly two hours.  Dolores, a Pennsylvania native, calls the storytelling style of her adopted South “sitting around on the front porch, rocking and lying, making up the stories as you go along.”

Bobby Horton plays a variety of vintage musical instruments to accompany traditional sing-along Christmas songs.

Horton’s fans around the world grew to love his meticulously researched historical melodies through his collaboration with Ken Burns on over a dozen PBS documentaries, including The Civil War and Baseball.  He has performed with Birmingham’s Three on a String since the early 1970s and has recorded a collection of CDs of Confederate and Union vocals and instrumentals as well as tributes to Stephen Foster and the patriots of the American Revolution.  Dolores Hydock’s laugh-out-loud interpretations of growing up and modern life while often poking fun at family foibles, are also available on CD.

Tickets to the 2-4 p.m. performance December 9^th at the Gardens, 2612 Lane Park Road, are available online at bbgardens.org/Southern-Tales.php and are expected to sell out quickly.  General admission is $20.  For more information contact Hope Long at 205-414-3950.  Experience the magic of Horton and Hydock at www.bobbyhorton.com and www.storypower.org.

Club members encourage the public to take advantage of their pre-order option.  Order forms for fresh greenery arrangements can be downloaded from the website RedMountainGardenClub.com.  Available seasonal selections include 16-36″ wreaths fashioned in fraser fir, white pine, balsam, boxwood and magnolia.  New this year is the 24″ fraser fir and white pine cross.  Garlands, red velvet bows and monkey puzzle wreaths are also available.

Pre-orders can be picked up in the Hodges Room at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on sale day, December 5 from 9 a.m. to noon.  Open to the public at no admission, the December 5 sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Gardens, 2612 Lane Park Road.

Specialty wreaths, kissing balls, holiday centerpieces, mailbox decorations, and gift items will be featured at the sale.  Pratt Brown of Pratt Brown Landscapes and Bob Newton of Landscape Services assist members in cutting mounds of greenery for a frenzy of pre-sale assembly.  Patrons of the sale benefit from garden club members knowledge of proper treatment of cut greenery to insure optimum decorating life.

The Memorial Garden at the Birmingham Museum of Art has been the club’s primary project since 1955. The garden was officially dedicated in 1959.  Many current members of the Red Mountain Garden Club are daughters and granddaughters of members instrumental in establishing the urban public garden.

Through proceeds from the greenery sale, the Red Mountain Garden Club fulfills the Garden Club of America’s mission to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening, to share the advantages of association by means of educational meetings, conferences and publications, and to restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement.

Working on the 2012 greenery sale are D. A. Tynes, Alpha Goings, Heather McWane and sale chairman Holly Goodbody.

For more information on the annual greenery sale contact Kathryn Corey at akqahc@charter.net or 205-960-2963 or visit the club’s website at RedMountainGardenClub.com.

Fall planting gives spring and summer bloomers the ideal span of dormancy to establish roots and acclimatize to soil and site.  Cool air and still warm earth, accompanied by increased rainfall over the winter months, offer the ideal environment for plant establishment.

Defined as “regularly repeated or renewed,” the botanical term perennial encompasses both landscape basics such as trees, shrubs and grasses as well as a wide variety of flowers rewarding gardeners with years of encore appearances.

Perennials, from daisies to daylilies, have served as staples in Southern gardens for centuries, and local garden centers and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens have educated and encouraged a renewed interest in the value of perennials as “investment plants” in recent years.  Area nurseries are offering an increasing selection of perennials, and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Fall Plant Sale October 20-21 will showcase hundreds of reliable, and in some cases rare, varieties of plants suitable for our climate zone (bbgardens.org/fall-plant-sale).

Perennials and annuals provide fall color in an English cottage garden.

PERENNIAL TIPS:

Plant for successive bloom and foliage feature, from daffodils in February through dramatic purple salvias in autumn.

Many perennials have a short bloom season while claiming a permanent spot in the garden.  Intersperse with annuals and herbs of varying colors and foliage textures.  Early bloomers such as false indigo (Baptisia Australis),  Lenten roses (Helleborus orientalis) and irises continue to add textural interest for months after flowers have faded.

Summer soldiers that don’t object to heat and drought include purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), catmint (Nepeta faassenii ‘Six Hills Giant’), and daisies (Leucanthemum superbum ‘Becky’ and ‘Alaska’).

Magnets for migrating butterflies in fall, salvias come in a variety of sizes and colors.  Blue-purple indigo spires (Salvia farinacea x longispicata), bright red and white lipstick (Salvia greggii), and delicate, frothy Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) add height as well as color and are good choices for the center of a bed or border.

Lenten roses bring spring's first promise of color in February.

Group for impact.

Odd numbers from three to seven in a group provide more punch than single plantings.

Daffodils should be planted in masses and divided every few years.

Consider vines for walls and trellises.

Confederate jasmine (Trachelosperum jasminoides) will quickly cover a fence and remains evergreen.  Vines planted from seeds, such as moonflower (Ipomoea alba) and passion flower (Passiflora incarnata), often reseed to come back year after year.

Passionflower blooms add drama to a wall or trellis and come in a variety of colors.

Bloom season care.

Pinching and deadheading perennials such as coneflowers, daisies and catmint will encourage continuing bloom.  Many perennials, including irises, bulbs, daylilies and phlox, should be dug and divided every few years, giving gardeners the opportunity to share with friends.  Rather than making a clean sweep of the late fall garden, allow foliage, particularly that  of hollow stemmed perennials like daisies and coneflowers, to die back naturally.

Catmint must not be confused with catnip! A perfect plant to spill over a wall or edge a border.

Plant them but don’t forget them!

When planting perennials in fall, it is helpful to mark locations to avoid mistaking emerging perennials for weeds in spring.

Indigo spires salvia adds height and intense color as well as attracting bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

An old fashioned, old favorite Southern wildflower, Queen Anne's lace reseeds to return year after year.

The fall flower garden is the harvest of careful selection in spring purchasing and planting, relying heavily on perennials that paint a dramatic palette of intense blues, purples, yellows and scarlets to compliment long blooming annuals.

Fall favorite perennials (along with annuals such as lantana and porterweed) produce an added bonus in serving as butterfly magnets as the annual migrations pass through Alabama.

A yellow swallowtail butterfly feeds on summer phlox (Phlox paniculata).

Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) enjoy a long bloom season from early summer until frost.

Coleus 'Sedona" (Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Sedon') and 'Bandana' lantana (Lantana camera 'Bandana")add rich seasonal colors to a window box.

Goldenrod (Solidago) is falsely accused of provoking allergies.

Stonecrop 'Autumn Joy' (Sedum 'Autumn Joy') provides summer foliage interest before blooming in September.

Lady in Red salvia (Salvia coccinea), purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) and white cat's whiskers (Orthosiphon stamineus) combine to make a gourmet meal for butterflies.

Black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) have been a Southern garden staple for generations.

Nymph white salvia (Salvia coccinea), pink Knockout roses (Rosa 'Knockout Pink') and indigo spires salvia (Salvia x 'Indigo Spires') perform well in early morning and late afternoon light.

Purple and white trailing lantana (Lantana montevidensis) spill over a wall.

An early blooming camellia, Camellia sasanqua 'Mine No Yuki' is a fall blooming shrub suitable for espaliering against a wall.

Porterweed (Stachytarpheta urticifolia) is an under utilized butterfly magnet, with strong stems reaching four feet tall.

The fall garden of mixed annuals and perennials makes an exuberant finale to summer.

Swamp sunflowers (Helianthus augustifolius) reseed with abandon.

More like a shrub than a tree in size and shape, the lace leaf Japanese maple 'Inaba Shidare' (Acer palmatum 'Inaba Shidare')turns from green to purple and red in late fall.

Fall's superstar tree, the Japanese maple Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood.'A monarch butterfly makes a migratory stop to sample Alabama lantana.

Mississippi garden writer Felder Rushing will provide an afternoon of his unique horticultural wit and wisdom on Sunday, September 9 at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  The 2 p.m. lecture will be followed by a book signing of Slow Gardening:  A No-Stress Philosophy for All Senses and Seasons.

“Slow Gardening is more about doing what you enjoy, and savoring what you do,” Rushing writes.  “But though my take on gardening has been through the hot forge of decades of formal horticultural training and professional work, it’s also tempered by my having been raised by real gardeners, including a horticulturalist great-grandmother who patiently shared with me her love of wildflowers, a garden-club grandmother whose home-hybridized daylilies won many blue ribbons, another more ‘country’ grandmother who just loved old-fashioned zinnias and her concrete chicken, and my parents, who struggled with vegetables and a lawn while raising a bunch of rowdy kids and pets.”

The author or co-author of 17 gardening books, including several national award winners, Rushing was featured in Southern Living’s 25th anniversary issue as one of “25 people most likely to change the South,” and his “overstuffed, quirky” cottage garden has appeared on the cover of the same magazine as well as in the New York Times.

Felder's garden, complete with flamingos

With many years service as “a distinctly non-stuffy” board member of the American Horticultural Society, Rushing also takes pride in being a rare male honorary member of Federated Garden Clubs of Mississippi.  As a popular lecturer he has logged more than half a million frequent flier miles.

His latest book, Slow Gardening, lavishly and often humorously illustrated, has appeal for beginning to expert gardeners and covers the gamut from pass-along plants to water wise tips to “what to do with all those little picture plant tags that come with flowers and veggies.”  (He cautions, “Has anyone ever seen a magazine photograph of a garden that has labels?”)

Throughout the book, practical advice is presented with the same sense of whimsy that Felder encourages in garden design.  Included in his “Gardeners Bill of Rights” are the right to plant any color of flower next to any other color of flower, even if they clash, the right to plant too many tomatoes every year, and the right to as many wind chimes as we can afford–bird feeders, too.

He speaks to good garden design combining elements that stimulate all of the senses, from “wind chimes, as important as nice fragrances,” to “other senses, including a sense of place–the terroir that makes a garden feel right” and “the overall ‘savory’ sensation called umami…which can be extrapolated to mean the overall satisfaction a garden gives.”

Felder’s list of warning signs that gardening may be approaching the compulsion stage is presented as a series of questions, including:

Does gardening affect your reputation (does the grocery store clerk know you garden?)

Do you grow more than ten different varieties of any one plant?

Do you know how many bags of compost your car can hold, or have you ever cleaned your car with a leaf blower?

Exploring the “New” American Garden Style, he writes, “But the typical, fast-food American approach of having a row of gumdrop-and meatball-shaped shrubs hugging the foundation of the house–usually set there originally by the building contractors–reminds me of a pig roast in which the cook tucks a little skirt of greenery around the baked ham.  Parsley around the pig.”

Gardeners are encouraged to add vodka to the paperwhite bulbs and art to the garden.  “All good gardens have some sort of artwork…Trouble is, there is no limit to how far you can take this concept; there is a fine line between expressing joie de vivre and just displaying a lot of junk.  Some people don’t know how to stop and end up creating a ‘total yard show’ by over-accessorizing with all sorts of little miniature windmills, gnomes, flamingos and plastic flowers.”

"Bottletrees" are traditional Southern garden art

As Roger B. Swain writes in the introduction to Slow Gardening:  “Felder will be quick to tell you that this book is essentially about pleasing yourself, about following your bliss, about savoring everything that you do in your yard…These are the gardens that cause us to pause, no matter how fast we are passing by.  These are the gardens, the ones characterized by whimsy, that people stop for.  The arresting force may be those flamingos, or a herd of plywood Holsteins.  The point is that people slow down.  They get out of their car.  The reach for the camera.”

************************************************************************

September 9 lecture tickets are $15 and available online at www.bbgardens.org.  For more information contact BBG Librarian Hope Long at 205-414-3950.  The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are at 2612 Lane Park Road.

“Home gardens provided fresh veggies and herbs used for cooking and medicine.  Most families, regardless of their financial status, had a few ornamental plants: ‘porch plants’ in pots and cherished roses, peonies or hollyhocks that made their home a welcoming place.”

Birmingham Historical Society volunteers prune heirloom roses in the Duncan House garden.

Lee, a home horticulture and environmental specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service who also serves on the board of the Historical Society, planned and implemented the garden behind the BHS headquarters in the 1905 Duncan House.

“While definitions vary, an heirloom plant is generally considered to be a variety of flowering plant or vegetable that is at least 50 years old, is not commercially grown, and is ‘open-pollinated,’ which means it can be grown from seed into new plants that look exactly like the parent plant,” Lee explains.  “Most heirlooms are time-tested, hardy, easy to grow, and often disease-resistant.  Native Alabama heirlooms are especially well adapted to our growing conditions.”

Lee cites a number of reasons for growing heirloom plants:

–better taste than commercial hybrids

–require less chemical sprays

–help sustain traditional organic gardening practices

–help feed pollinators such as bees, butterflies, bats and beneficial beetles

Preparing beds for spring planting.

Among heirloom varieties being cultivated at Duncan House are Lavender Lassie, Duchesse de Brabant, and Prosperity roses, perennial irises, lilies, and peonies, annual black-eyed Susans, Johnny jump-ups and pinks, and traditional kitchen and medicinal herbs including basils, mints, bee balm, bunet, and comfrey.  Black Krim and Red Cabash tomatoes thrive along with okra, watermelons, pole beans, squash, collards and butter beans in the vegetable beds, with Brown Turkey, Celeste, and Lemon figs as fruit providers.

The annual garden schedule includes attention to the basics:  soil testing, fertilizing, pest and weed control, and watering, all relying on traditional methods that would have been employed by turn-of-the-century gardeners.  Organic fertilizers used are well-composted horse and chicken manure as well as composted yard and kitchen scraps.  Companion planting of vegetables and herbs discourages harmful insects.  Generous use of mulch reduces irrigation needs to twice weekly early morning as supplement to natural rainfall.

Traditional annuals and perennials share a mixed bed of summer flowers.

Sallie Lee offers a “one hand reminder” for planting heirlooms:

Thumb-know your soil.  Soil testing kits are available from the Cooperative Extension Service offices at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Index finger-are you “pointing to” an area of sun, shade, or a combination of the two?

Middle finger-water is critical to plant health, and it’s important to understand the individual water requirements of various plants

Ring finger-adequate drainage is as important as adequate water

Pinky finger-considering light, water and drainage conditions guides the gardener in selecting the right plants for the right places

For more information on planting an heirloom garden, including an extensive list of the most common vegetables, ornamental annuals, flowering perennials, shrubs and trees and traditional medicinal herbs grown by gardeners in rural Alabama in the early 20^th century contact the County Extension Service at 205-879-6964 or visit their offices on the second floor Birmingham Botanical Gardens and online at www.aces.edu.

Weld thanks the Birmingham Historical Society and the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service for permission to reprint from their full color brochure on the Duncan House garden, available at no charge from BHS and ACES.

Our talented friend Eddie Robinson has created for us with hammer and nails around two houses over thirty years, and it’s in the garden that I most appreciate his design talents as well as his construction expertise.

Weeds were twelve feet high when we bought our property.

In 1997, when we bought our house on the top of Red Mountain, along with two vacant city view lots across the street, the once formal gardens had returned to nature.  I didn’t know beans about gardening, and the first landscape architect I consulted bluntly described our jungle in one word, “hopeless.”

Too dumb to know better, I charged on.  As I amassed the usual gardener’s collection of shovels, rakes, fertilizers and bug and weed foe fighters, the walk-in kitchen pantry began to resemble a garden center, and my husband expressed concern that the Round-up resided on the same shelf with the Rice Krispies.

Next to our guest house a concrete pad remained from a long gone green house.  A base in place cries out for building something, and Eddie came up with a plan for a potting shed so perfectly compatible with the existing little stone cottage that it could have been part of the original 1922 design.

Cottage with potting shed. Eddie and I checked out books from the library at the Botanical Gardens for ideas for creating an interior whimsical as well as functional. On a budget, we haunted the sale area of Home Depot for windows, a French door, a skylight. Out of wood found on a construction scrap pile he crafted a beautiful bench. My dad, an inveterate scavenger of curbside discards, was the source of a weathervane snagged and saved “just in case we ever need it.” A quotation from Tennyson and straw garden hats accentuate rough framed walls.

In the realm of discards, for years people had treated the vacant lots across the street from our house as a handy landfill.  Venturing into the wasteland of twelve foot tall weeds, we found enough cans and bottles to open our own recycling center, old tires, a broken baby buggy, lots of things that can’t be mentioned in a polite publication.

To prevent the “tourists” who nightly arrive to enjoy the city view from parking on the property like it was a drive-in theatre, the previous owners had sunk iron railroad ties along the curb.  Weeds cleared, as the grass seeds took root and carpeted a lawn, every weekend my husband and I trolled neighborhoods scouting fences.  A rustic split rail provided a nice counterpoint to the country Tudor architecture of our house.

In a perfect example of a garden as an ever evolving work-in-progress, my garden guru Jason Powell of Petals from the Past and I first tried a simple design of vintage Wills Scarlet roses planted along the fence posts.

"Wills Scarlet" is one of Jason Powell's favorite varieties of vintage roses.

As Jason well knows, when it comes to the garden, I am never satisfied with simple.   Taking a walk in Kennebunkport, Maine, I serendipitously stumbled onto a lush English curbside garden.  Excitedly emailing images to Jason, he responded, “Perfect!  If only Alabama had the same climate as the coastal northeast.”

Wills Scarlet roses relocated from fence line to a bed ot their own.

Because the ridge of Red Mountain is subject to harsh climactic conditions, from broiling sun to gale force winds, Jason instead chose plants suitable for the prairies of Texas.  With phlox mimicking lilacs, hardy roses, and a variety of perennials running 210′ along the fence, he achieved the look I loved in that New England mixed border.

Don Juan roses paired with white Texas salvia.

Purple coneflowers put on a summer long show.

We were on our way, but both Jason and I agreed that something was still lacking.  Enter Eddie and back to poring over books from the BBG Library.  What we needed was the vertical element of an arbor with a gate.

Two days before hundreds of people were expected for a Garden Conservatory tour of our garden, my husband was surprised to find Eddie at our breakfast room table along with the cereal.  He just shook his head and stumbled off to work as Eddie and I proclaimed, “We’re building something!  In forty eight hours!”

Eddie Robinson relaxes after crafting an arbor in less than two days.

Of all of the wonderful things Eddie has given us over 30 years of “let’s build something!” nothing has equaled the ongoing pleasure that we, along with the numbers of people who stroll our street, take from our arbor.

The arbor is centered along a 210 foot border garden and frames a city view. Eddie crafted the arbor out of wood with a story behind it that transforms simple into special. Several decades before, Eddie had been involved in a commercial construction project on Southside that required cutting down a 200 year old cedar tree. Unwilling to let such a magnificent piece of nature die in vain, Eddie hauled away the tree, and hauled it around through multiple moves for more than 20 years, in reserve for just the right project.After trying a variety of vines, Jason suggested crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) as an evergreen that blooms profusely in spring.

Last weekend we witnessed the latest in a continuing series of marriage proposals taking place under our arbor.  Countless brides have used it as a frame for taking engagement and wedding photographs, numerous family Christmas card photos, of families whose names we don’t even know, have posed under it.  All of the random people with whom we have shared our arbor’s provenance agree that there’s an element of magic in recycling an ancient tree to a lasting statement of beauty.

For fifteen years we have sought a solution for fencing two Golden Retrievers into our back yard, which abuts a large piece of property, only part of which we own.  Fences may make good neighbors, but it’s not legal, nor cost effective, to fence off the neighbor’s property.

In May two happy events coincided.  Our family welcomed a five year old Golden Retriever, whose kennel name we planned to change, and Mississippi garden historian Susan Haltom came to town as the featured speaker for events benefiting the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and the Literacy Council, the latter a garden party at our house.

Reading Susan’s marvelous book, One Writer’s Garden:  Eudora Welty’s Home Place, the chronicle of her ten year restoration of the iconic author’s Jackson garden, on page 223 I found my fence.

Eddie once again at the breakfast table, sketching away, my patient husband mumbled, “I guess we’re building something.  Has anyone told him that we have 100 people coming for tea tomorrow?”

The new Golden Retriever, rechristened, appropriately, Eudora, arrived along with a heavenly scented stack of cedar.

New back yard fence and arbor, inspired by a design from Eudora Welty's garden.

Eddie again accented my garden with something as beautifully crafted as fine furniture, built to last longer than we will, a legacy for the future gardeners, and their dogs, who will follow us, just as I treasure old bulbs and peonies, returning every spring like thank you notes from the ladies who began this garden 90 years ago.

The rocky top of Red Mountain restricts the spots where I can dig a hole without the help of a jackhammer.  As always, I turned to the creative landscape designers at Petals from the Past.  Shelley Powell advised me to mix up the fence softening message with a combination of Confederate jasmine, a Ruth’s Red climbing rose, an Endless Summer hydrangea, and a passion flower vine called “Anne’s Purple” that is already taking off like Jack’s beanstalk and rewarding me with purple blooms that are nothing short of amazing.  Canine Eudora’s favorite spot for a summer afternoon nap is a shady spot next to “her” fence.

An arbor and garden make a fence an invitation rather than a barrier as a feature in the garden. Purple passion flower.

Eudora and Confederate jasmine.

When she and her companion Golden Sunshine and I work on our border garden across the street, Eudora has another naptime hideaway, our duplex dog house, designed and built, of course, by Eddie.

Eudora and Sunshine's duplex doghouse, designed and built by Eddie Robinson.

I have found that the input of others is crucial in the evolution of a garden, whether it’s enjoying the irises along the fence that were passalong plant gifts from a friend, or taking advantage of the keen design instincts of professionals like Jason and Shelley Powell coupled with historical garden information gleaned from writers like Susan Haltom.

And, in my garden, it took a carpenter to make it complete.

Baby wrens are already nesting along "Eudora's fence."

I don’t pray for inconsequential things like parking spaces, or sunshine on the day that I have a picnic planned.

Since last Saturday I have been praying with a purpose for two friends I met who instantly touched my life.

Thought that this was a garden blog, didn’t you?  Please read on.

I was also touched by the many responses I received to a blog I wrote in April, about dogs in the garden in general, and the particular personal loss of my canine gardening companion Sally.  In my life, gardens and dogs, especially dogs blessed to be Golden Retrievers, are indivisible.

To those of you kind enough to grieve with me over Sally’s death, I am happy to report that another Golden girl has become the latest link in the chain of these amazing animals who have graced and given to our lives over the last thirty plus years.

Eudora finds her spot in the Adams' garden.

Ten days ago we welcomed into our family five year old P.S. I Love You, whom we have nicknamed Eudora as her arrival coincided with a frenzy of activity surrounding Susan Haltom’s visit to Birmingham to lecture on her restoration of Eudora Welty’s garden.

Eudora missed her plane that Thursday and eventually arrived from Princeton, New Jersey, the day after Susan’s fascinating talk, right in the middle of a dinner we were hosting for the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation.  My husband borrowed a truck to haul the large crate so Miss Eudora made her Alabama debut in suitable Southern style riding shotgun in a pick up.

In answer to a question I’ve been asked so many times that I’ve thought about inventing multiple answers to relieve the monotony, why would a woman who champions Birmingham’s recently organized (and WELL organized) Adopt-a-Golden Birmingham Rescue buy a dog from a breeder in New Jersey?

Because I own a Golden named Sunshine who has a most atypical Golden personality.  Sunshine can be downright snarly with other dogs.  She has to be the leader of our house’s pack of two.  In finding Sunshine a sister, I had to have another Sally, a dog with a known quantity personality who would tolerate being bossed around without becoming a whipping post.

Sunshine’s mourning over Sally was a wrenching thing to watch.  We honestly didn’t know how she would react to another dog.  We knew that the option to return the dog had to be on the plate.  The concept of bringing a dog who was up for adoption because of some kind of trauma, whether it be abuse, neglect, or loss of owner because of personal change in situation was not a viable option.   I knew that I could, albeit awash in tears, return a dog to a breeder if I had to.  I don’t think that I could have survived telling a rescue to get back on the list of hopeful candidates for adoption.

I did a lot of praying while Eudora was flying south, and the fact that Sunshine immediately greeted her with wagging tail and an offer to share her toys is pretty good proof that prayer works.

Sunshine and Eudora--instant sisters!

Bringing me to my two friends Gabe and Harley.  Eudora and I had the immense pleasure of spending two hours with this pair when we worked in the Adopt-a-Golden booth at Do Dah Day.

Gabe--a gentle Golden giant

Harley--a real lady with a wonderful disposition

They were like their own PR team with everyone who stopped by our booth.  Wags, licks, every trick in the book to convince someone to give them a home.  While Gabe, who is THE most beautiful Golden I’ve ever seen in more than thirty years of working with this breed, had my whole head soaking wet from sloppy kisses, when a small child approached he very politely tapped her face with the tip of his tongue.  Gentle giant who would make for some little girl that childhood pet she so loves that she will remember him into old age.

Gabe gravitates to children at Do Dah Day

Gabe’s bonded companion, Harley, is as sweet as the tea my grandmother used to serve.  She’s a small Lab mix, also incredibly attuned to children.  A little on the shy side, she reminded me of a politician’s wife hovering a bit in the back ground as the candidate slaps backs and gives a rousing speech.  Gabe didn’t just greet people, he openly asked for someone to vote the two of them into their family.

Harley's hope is to be a child's best friend

Before the story of how these incredible animals found themselves in a rescue program, a word about some of the misconceptions regarding rescue dogs.  Not by a long shot have all been victims of abuse, in many cases they have lost perfectly loving homes because of changes in owner circumstance—a transfer out of town, a divorce, a child who proves to be highly allergic to animals, the tragedy of foreclosure.  As victims of circumstance, they are SO ready to segue into a new situation, no questions asked.

In more cases than not, rescues are owner issue related.  Many of the Goldens who are surrendered to rescues around the country are suffering from heartworms, treatable but at great expense.  Thanks to donations to Adopt-a-Golden Birmingham, the program covers the cost of treatment, and after return to health these dogs are imminently adoptable.  Hopefully to good homes with owners responsible enough to provide one simple, and affordable, pill a month to prevent heartworms.

Certainly some dogs are surrendered to rescue because of behavioral issues, but let’s question whose behavior is at fault.  In one case, the owner gave up the dog because she complained that it had a terrible habit—the dog liked to dig.

Tell me that’s not an ignorant owner rather than an innocent dog problem?!

Watching Gabe and Harley, so enthusiastically, so joyously working to sell themselves, I had to consider the indomitability of those canine spirits, their can-do, never-give-up hope attitudes.

Gabe and Harley came to Adopt-a-Golden through the Greater Birmingham Humane Society.  They were delivered there by a company called to “pick up junk” by a couple getting a divorce.

Tossed out like trash, “just junk,” and yet they still so obviously believe, in each other and in us too fallible humans.

Sure there are large issues out there, like world peace and too much suffering humanity, that are deserving of all of the prayers we can generate.  I don’t feel one bit guilty asking for a few minutes at God’s ear asking for help in finding the perfect home for Gabe and Harley.  The grace, and the stubborn refusal to give up on giving joy, is God given.  Mankind failed them terribly, but they are oh so eager to give us another shot.

Gabe and Harley, like all of the adoptees available on the Adoptagoldenbirmingham.com website are spayed and neutered and up to date on all vaccines.

You are out there, lucky family whose children will grow up with these perfect companions, I know that you are.

I am praying for you to read this.

To adopt, volunteer or donate to Adopt-a-Golden Birmingham, a 501 (c) (3) tax deductible organization, visit the website at adoptagoldenbirmingham.com.