Sheâd done wonders with the place since she moved in and, if he hadnât felt so sick, he would have drawn back the curtains and told her.
16 TH
S ugar had grown up in Charleston, South Carolina:Â possibly the most luscious of the worldâs garden cities. Behind every wrought-iron gate or exposed-brick wall in the picturesque peninsula blooming between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers lay a sweet-scented treasure trove of camellias, roses, gardenias, magnolias, tea olives, azaleas and jasmine, everywhere, jasmine.
With its lush greenery, opulent vines, sumptuous hedgerows and candy-colored window boxes, it was no wonder the cityâs native sons and daughters believed it to be the most beautiful place on earth.
In her first years of exile Sugar had tried to cultivate a reminder of the luxuriant garden delights she had left behind, struggling in sometimes hostile elements to train reluctant honeysuckle and sulky sweet potato vines or nurture creeping jenny and autumn stonecrop.
In the Napa Valley sheâd had jasmine growing like a weed and her bees loved it, and so, she thought, did she. But a faint foreign cloud of regret seemed to lurk above her when the vine flowers started to bloom and, once she realized the beautiful sweet scent from her childhood was making her homesick, she pulled it out and never planted it again.
From that point on, she stuck to growing things that kept her looking on the bright side and made the most of her natural surroundings.
In Santa Fe her whole yard had been crowded with differentsized terra-cotta pots, out of which she grew everything from rosemary and lavender to ornamental pear and plum trees and even peppers, although they were not particularly popular with the bees.
In Colorado sheâd created a fertile oasis out of old gas cans and cut-off oil drums. Her neighbors had been skeptical to begin with but once her creepers grew up and her flowers draped down and her shrubs fluffed out, the junkyard ugly duckling was transformed into the proverbial backyard swan.
For Flores Street, George had found some discarded cast-iron half-pipes on an East River building site and arranged for Ralph, a young friend of his great-nephew, and two of his buddies to help haul them up to 5B.
Sugar had tried to foist some money on Ralph for payment but he would not hear of it.
âAny friend of Mr. Wainwright is a friend of ours,â he said. âMy mom always says he saved her bacon when we were kids. I donât know how but I think it had something to do with my dad moving back home. Whatever, heâs a pretty cool dude. And he really likes your door.â
âAnd it likes him,â Sugar said, sending him away with two jars of North Idaho clover.
Perched up on salvaged bricks, the half-pipes made perfect planters with an industrial edge that oddly complemented Sugarâs pretty favorites: pansies, lantana, verbena and heliotrope.
She laid two of them by the long wall of the taller building next door and planted a clematis vine at one end and a moonflower vine at the other: the clematis because the variety she picked had the prettiest purple bloom and the moonflower because it opened in the early evening and emanated a heavenly scent just when a person most felt like smelling one.
She made gingham covers in different colors for her eclectic collection of patio furniture and bought Chinese lanterns and a strand of bistro lights at the Hester Street flea market, then a couple of oversized outdoor candle holders with matching cracks from a closing-down sale on Essex Street. She even found a jardiniere for sale on a Chinatown corner for twenty dollars plus two jars of propolis. She planted a miniature magnolia tree that did not remind her of the ones in the garden at home at all because her mama took great pride in her magnolias being the biggest in the street and this little specimen was as petite as could be.
It took a few weeks, but with all her hard work and the
16 TH
S ugar had grown up in Charleston, South Carolina:Â possibly the most luscious of the worldâs garden cities. Behind every wrought-iron gate or exposed-brick wall in the picturesque peninsula blooming between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers lay a sweet-scented treasure trove of camellias, roses, gardenias, magnolias, tea olives, azaleas and jasmine, everywhere, jasmine.
With its lush greenery, opulent vines, sumptuous hedgerows and candy-colored window boxes, it was no wonder the cityâs native sons and daughters believed it to be the most beautiful place on earth.
In her first years of exile Sugar had tried to cultivate a reminder of the luxuriant garden delights she had left behind, struggling in sometimes hostile elements to train reluctant honeysuckle and sulky sweet potato vines or nurture creeping jenny and autumn stonecrop.
In the Napa Valley sheâd had jasmine growing like a weed and her bees loved it, and so, she thought, did she. But a faint foreign cloud of regret seemed to lurk above her when the vine flowers started to bloom and, once she realized the beautiful sweet scent from her childhood was making her homesick, she pulled it out and never planted it again.
From that point on, she stuck to growing things that kept her looking on the bright side and made the most of her natural surroundings.
In Santa Fe her whole yard had been crowded with differentsized terra-cotta pots, out of which she grew everything from rosemary and lavender to ornamental pear and plum trees and even peppers, although they were not particularly popular with the bees.
In Colorado sheâd created a fertile oasis out of old gas cans and cut-off oil drums. Her neighbors had been skeptical to begin with but once her creepers grew up and her flowers draped down and her shrubs fluffed out, the junkyard ugly duckling was transformed into the proverbial backyard swan.
For Flores Street, George had found some discarded cast-iron half-pipes on an East River building site and arranged for Ralph, a young friend of his great-nephew, and two of his buddies to help haul them up to 5B.
Sugar had tried to foist some money on Ralph for payment but he would not hear of it.
âAny friend of Mr. Wainwright is a friend of ours,â he said. âMy mom always says he saved her bacon when we were kids. I donât know how but I think it had something to do with my dad moving back home. Whatever, heâs a pretty cool dude. And he really likes your door.â
âAnd it likes him,â Sugar said, sending him away with two jars of North Idaho clover.
Perched up on salvaged bricks, the half-pipes made perfect planters with an industrial edge that oddly complemented Sugarâs pretty favorites: pansies, lantana, verbena and heliotrope.
She laid two of them by the long wall of the taller building next door and planted a clematis vine at one end and a moonflower vine at the other: the clematis because the variety she picked had the prettiest purple bloom and the moonflower because it opened in the early evening and emanated a heavenly scent just when a person most felt like smelling one.
She made gingham covers in different colors for her eclectic collection of patio furniture and bought Chinese lanterns and a strand of bistro lights at the Hester Street flea market, then a couple of oversized outdoor candle holders with matching cracks from a closing-down sale on Essex Street. She even found a jardiniere for sale on a Chinatown corner for twenty dollars plus two jars of propolis. She planted a miniature magnolia tree that did not remind her of the ones in the garden at home at all because her mama took great pride in her magnolias being the biggest in the street and this little specimen was as petite as could be.
It took a few weeks, but with all her hard work and the
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