It will probably be a torrid day, but the good gardener is out before breakfast while the dew is wet.

With the kitchen scissors she cuts back the faded roses. They look like wilted debutantes who have been dancing too long at the ball.

From the heap of compost concealed behind the rockery covered in orange lotus, she gives each bush a spongy topper. This will have to do in lieu of parasols.

After breakfast she will spend the day soaking their beds.

It should be done at twilight, but by then, she is dressed in her prettiest summer frock. If there is one thing more ruinous to a lady’s hands than watering it is weeding. And she knows better, for in inspired exalted moments, she has done them both. The manicurist’s worst nightmares are her nails.

The pixies have gathered together for Blue Columbine Fairy’s farewell, and spend the day sipping Horse’s Necks in the shade. She leaves a little flimsy, her lacy frock slipping off her shoulders.

How to Make A Horse’s Neck.

Two lumps of broken ice in a tumbler and fill it with cold ginger ale, add the peel of a lemon with one end hanging jauntily over the top.

The Indifferent Mole.

There are in Elf and Fairy’s world two types of time. They are perpendicular to each other: real time and imaginary time. A mathematician would tell you that some roots are real and some are imaginary and when they appear together, that’s what makes them complex. Some of these interesting roots are real and equal, and they are called double roots. It is in similar roots that Fairy and Elf live.

The indifferent mole.

Last night Elf forgot to pull the curtains - so giddy was he, after the late and unusual spring monsoon. This was Mother Nature’s gift to all those who still weed by hand, and he, for one, was honored. In the early morning he opened the window to watch Venus rising and after, he went out on the deck to cherish the sun coming up the hill, gilding the eastern Santa Monica Mountains. Something moved in the vegetable garden. It was a mole, a little brown runt of a creature brazenly eating the rocket Fairy raised from seed.

“Go away,” he shouted, “Am-scray.” The mole, caring nothing for Pig Latin, gave an indifferent glance and took another bite.

Elf flew up in a fury and when his wings sodden damp with the dew wouldn’t lift, he found himself reduced to brandishing his arms about like a mere mortal man. Only then would the mole descend down into the dark earth beneath the violets.

At breakfast, Fairy asked him curiously what in the world he was shouting at in the early hours.

On the table was a bowl of wind-ravaged roses, oriental poppies and dill.

“Do you suppose moles are deaf? I know they are blind. He was rude and arrogant and just thinking of himself until I dashed at him.”

Fairy offered Elf a thick rasher of bacon.

“Why?” Asked Fairy meditatively, “didn’t you bless him with a moving spell?

In some corner of the heavenly garden we’ll spend eternity growing the flower combinations we forgot.

A Gardener's Schedule.

A gardener’s schedule.

Monday wash away the aphids with kitchen soap and water. Weed.

Tuesday send the little boys out with buckets to gather snails. Weed.

Wednesday spray for mildew and apply chicken manure. Weed.

Thursday apply rose, citrus and tomato food. Weed.

Friday spray red spider and thrip with Bordeaux. Weed.

Saturday apply bone meal and pick off rusty leaves. Weed.

Sunday you will probably stay in bed. Anoint yourself with a homemade honey and peppermint lotion, yogurt and egg conditioner, lemon balm for insect bites, or go to Sienna Day Spa and let Sally truly pamper you.

The children want to set up a target at the bottom of the garden and throw balls at the green nectarines and they want to teach the dogs to fetch in the vegetable garden and they want to pick a bouquet of your prized ranunculus.

“Never mind,” Says your Mother. “They can take their bows and arrows and play Robin Hood in the wildwoods in July with their grandfather.”

When having guests,

A good fairy should be civil

To her friends and family,

And always stop in time to wash

Her hands and feet for tea.


Fairy does her best but falls a little short of the task. Brynhildr frowns at the sight of Fairy’s dirty fingernails.

The Valkyrie, who has climbed up the tree house to speak with Carabosse, notes vituperatively that Fairy has brought her gardening indoors.

Actually Fairy is a little relieved to have a reason to leave their company, and goes down to the waterfall with a scrubbing brush. She is even more pleased when Elf comes by and offers to take her for a late afternoon ride.

When riding with an elf, a Good Fairy never

Tries to read maps upside down,

Cries “Oh Look!” at a flowering meadow when he is passing a truck,

Insists on taking such a charming lane which ought to come out very near where he is going but never does,

Keeps telling him how hungry she is when he is trying to find some place to dine on a strange road,

Calls attention to the heat when he doesn’t have air conditioning,

Begs him to stop at the quaint little antique store or whimpers while passing her favorite nursery,

Gives a little shriek when he just misses a fruit bat.

Summer Vaporings

Summer vaporings.

Leave the chores for the day. Forget the pots of sunflowers that aren’t transplanted, the weeds that need pulling, and the roses that need washing with soapy water. Go fishing.

Lure your friend from his office with some fat bait from your garden. Pack the picnic basket with cold sausages, a thermos of chicken broth, a loaf of fresh French bread, some tasty cheeses, a red fat tomato, a small jar of gherkins, a jar of delicious Topanga olives and a bucket of fresh strawberries. Also a corked bottle of chilled Lemony Fizzle made with your own lemons.

Find a sunny dry place on one of the granite rocks that hang over the waterfall. Two robins are taking a bath just below the spot where your feet hang. Speak in whispers. Let your date bait your hook for you and prop your pole with rocks so you won’t have to hold it. Be as lazy as you want in the warm afternoon sun.

With droopy eyes, lie quietly with your head in his lap and watch the dragon flies buzz the orange poppies. Point out to your friend the wedge of a pale moon hanging above the yellow broom. Wait and a gentle breeze will drift across your face and cool your flushed cheeks. This is the perfect time and place for a nap from exhaustion.

How to make Lemony Fizzle.

Strain four or five fresh lemons into a pitcher with three ounces of gin, add powdered sugar to taste and fill with carbonated water, stir and serve.

Fairy’s Money Spell

Fairy is obliged to cast a money spell and she will do it the way it should be done, in the grace of a new moon. Flying low to the ground in the dense cloud of a dewy dawn down to the bottom of Grandview, she has the good fortune to find a rusty horseshoe on the trail to the waterfall. When she gets home she uses a wire brush to clean the rust out of the nail holes.

In the darkest part of the garden, before the crescent moon rises, she lights a white birthday candle. She takes seven tiny pieces of green paper and writes on each her best wishes for Brynhildr and Troll’s prosperity. She rolls the papers tight and pokes them through each of the holes in the horseshoe.

As the moon rises she carries the candle out into the darkest part of the garden, sits by a rosemary bush and on a separate piece of paper, writes their money wish and burns it there with a sprig of new rosemary over the candle. This must be done in the moonlight too.

She buries the horseshoe under a marigold bed and forgets about it almost at once, which must be done or the spell will be broken. She will do this again under every crescent moon until midsummer.

The faeries believe that if you have to wash your blankets in May, wash them before the moon is waxing or you will wash a dear one away.

Do nothing of this kind of magic for your own needs, or you will wish away a dear one in exchange.

Troll is lolling on the bedroom deck, stretched out in the sun with a mirror on his freckled chest. Like a molting elephant seal, some lower bits of him are motley, still healing from his poison oak, but he has an audition tomorrow and his face, he will tan.

Brynhildr lies next to him with the Sunday comics over hers. The telephone rings. If they lie perfectly still, one of the children might answer it.

No such luck. Troll glances over at his Valkyrie, and knows what must be done. Off he trundles down the stairs, taking his time.

“Well,” She shouts down, lifting a corner of the paper, “who was it and did you invite them for dinner?”

“Yes,” He confesses sheepishly, “But I couldn’t help it. It was Fairy and Elf.”

He is visibly having a brilliant idea. “We can ask them for a money spell! That’s the rule. If the faeries invite themselves for dinner, they must give you a free spell! It’s them what invited they for dinner.”

Troll was excited, and when excited, there are some trolls who have trouble speaking.

Brynhildr loves a good money spell, especially with this month’s mortgage looming. Troll grins as she blows him a languid kiss. She will have poor Bay serve lemon drops before dinner out on the terrace. Fairy loves her lemon drops.

She reminds the Troll the golden rules when dining with the Faerie World.

Don’t talk about servants, politics, religion, racial bias, or the children’s private school.

Use the finest china, your best silver and your newest serviettes.

Try to look like people of leisure.

It is almost sunset and Elf is lying on a toadstool in the meadow up on Tuna when Fairy finally finds him. She explains the predicament and although he is reluctant, if it is to help Carabosse, then one must go.

“They’ll want money spells,” says Elf, grumbling, ”They always do.”

“We can shower together in the waterfall,” Fairy proffers, as she snuggles up against his chest.
“To save time.”


April is the best month for gardening. A gloomy June day is comfortable too.

Notes for next spring’s garden:

Plant bare-root roses and bare-root fruit trees. They are so much cheaper than buying them by pot at the nurseries.

Fairy needs a personal squirrel.

She needs help getting organized. Even sprites have paperwork to file. Carabosse advises her to get rid of the clutter; while some ballast is good for pixies, too much and you can feel bogged down.

Fairy does feel a little bogged down. Carabosse thinks squirrels are old-fashioned; she insists they call in the local expert. A lovely English woman they are certain is half-pixie. Gaily she leads them on a merry march through the tree house in search of things they no longer need or want.

Some hours later, the paperwork has all gone to its proper place and ten cardboard boxes filled with clothing and other assorted items have being whisked away in Paula Pop-ins' car.

Elf comes home to find Fairy and Carabosse dancing around the fire pit.

“Oh, darling, it’s lovely. And a bargain, too. We saved a fortune in late fees.”

Carabosse can be a very clever fairy when she puts her mind to it.

Elf made whitings in white wine for dinner. He cooked them in a casserole with kosher sea salt, pepper and chopped mushrooms in butter. He used Sauterne; a glassful poured over them, and baked them in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes and served them with grilled baby zucchini and summer squash.

Long after everyone else has gone to bed, Fairy lies awake in a white mist, fragrant with late blooming jasmine and cold with no stars, no moon, not even the shadows of branches across the sky. Somewhere in the brume, the owls are calling.

She lives over again the heart felt conversations they have had this week. Her dear friend Carabosse wants to find Princess Thunderthighs and tell her the truth. Fairy does not think this will turn out well.

Carabosse has softened with age and experience. She still has a sharp tongue but she is no match for the bellicose creature that has conspired with the magician to cause them so much pain.

The despairing, hungry yaps of the coyotes haunt the calm of the canyon. It is too dismal for Fairy to sleep. She goes through the wood down to the waterfall to collect ferns for transplanting in gullies more barren. She cuts down dead swords for the little boys to find in their morning play.

With damp grubby hands, a basket of curling young fronds for other sandy beds and a queer sort of exultation in her heart, she strolls home at dawn along silent, roundabout roads.

In the afternoon she will mulch the new pear tree and fill the flowers along Fernwood Pacific with nectar for the hummingbirds. It is obvious that she must support her old friend, but she means to avoid that magician at all cost. They must find an ally, a mediator, a therapist, a miracle worker.

Brynhildr! Of course! It’s obvious, she says out loud, of course. Look how well she has tidied up her little troll! An extremely weary Fairy climbs into bed with her good idea.

If the coyotes would go to sleep!

Things NOT to be purchased for the garden this year:

A bar on wheels. Have you ever pushed a baby carriage up and down steps and hillsides? A tray with a basket handle and a rack for glasses is much easier and less ostentatious.

Cushions that have to be brought in every time it rains and before the dogs take to sleeping on them.

Couch swings with springs that rust unless you are willing to paint them once or twice a season.

A table with an umbrella stuck in the center. Attractive but why not sit on folding chairs under the shade of your own trees? A folding bench makes a fine rest for the tray.

Remember your grandmother’s advice that true beauty is best left unadorned. Let the focus be your garden, not the furniture.

Make it easy to find a place outside to have a quiet moment in the early evening when there are no blowers and weed abaters and builders. Lie alone to admire the serenity of the quiet starry nights we are so blessed to have in Topanga Canyon. Lure your neighbors to come with promises of a roaring fire and hot spiced rum. Make sure they are walking home.

Children will love the thrill of doing homework by the light of a lantern out in the wild woods listening to their elders conversing relaxed and happy. Dinner can be served as a picnic on the blanket, easy and light.

Recipe for Hot Spiced Rum.

Dissolve two or three lumps of brown sugar in a little boiling water for each tumbler, one wine glass of old Jamaica rum, a bit of butter just rounder than an acorn, a teaspoon of spices; nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. Fill with more boiling water and stir well.

Can be served from a thermos.

The Subtle Violet Fairy

The Subtle Violet Fairy.

“Did you ever see a Violet Fairy creeping in a rock garden, along a border?” asks the alluring advertisement in one of those greasy old magazines that was lying around the mechanic’s lounge for the Magician to read while he waited for his smog test.

No, he never did and he’d like to.

On his way home, he stopped at the Seed and Feed to get a package of seed for creeping violets and also a pot of lavender, the Fairy’s faithful love. Every year she grew them all varieties, in all her favored gardens. Mostly in masses, with rosemary and sage, she liked plants that didn’t need much effort or water. In early Venus Moon mornings, she would arrange them in dewy bouquets for impromptu Fairy Rings, where she danced wearing sweet pea and pear blossoms, in still life compositions that drove flower painters mad with envy.

Days later he found he couldn’t stop thinking about the Fairy. Tomorrow before sunrise, the Magician thought, he will go out to watch Venus rise and dance as the moon rises with her, to feel again the cool damp air on his skin, and he will touch the lavender buds gently, to remember her scent.

Fairy was most beautiful when she was in her garden, wearing only mud like war-paint and petals in her hair and skirts of peach blossoms and red cyclamens.

Such contemplation doesn’t help with dinner plans.

It is Sunday evening. He would like to put his feet up, read the paper, cozy and warm in front of the crackling fire, but Princess Thunderthighs and his children expect a culinary extravaganza.

From the freezer, he pulls out a package of tacos from Trader Joes and a bag of frozen corn kernels. There are cans of green beans in the pantry for those who insist on eating vegetables, and, for the head of the family, a cool case of beer.

Although he was loathe saying so out loud, what he really needed was a wand enhancement, but that took money. As if she was reading his mind, his girlfriend croaked his name from the bedroom. He had almost forgotten! With fiendish inspiration he took the creeping violet seeds, his trowel and a small plastic bucket out to the back garden behind his kitchen and started digging around in the earth in the rock wall. He was careful to keep every pink worm live and squirming as he placed them in the bucket.

Dinner fit for a Princess!

An Old Gardener's Chantey.

Scab is the fungus that’s blighting that leaf.
Yo, ho! Spray with Bordeaux!
Leaf curl and fruit rot what cause so much grief,
Yo, ho! Spray with Bordeaux!

Rust’s on our roses, the hollyhock’s dying.
Yo, ho! Spray with Bordeaux!
All goes to rot when the gardener’s flying.
Yo, ho! Spray with Bordeaux!

There were few things Elf liked to do more than fly. He had been yearning for this moment all winter. What bliss to scoot through the sky, gliding with wings spread wide open, wind whipping wildly all around. Elf loved the feeling of soaring up in a silky convergence although the wild ride of coring a thermal thrilled him too. What a blast to be spun up through the clouds as if riding on the back of a bronco. There were peaceful winds that sailed you along and angry winds that were as hard to ride as Brahmas. If he was fortunate enough after to find a friendly wind to help him along, just when he had begun to fatigue, then he felt blessed indeed.

Elf flew through the mist, over woods, green hills and small canyon waterfalls. In the late afternoon the Anabatic winds came off the ocean up the hills making his flight a dream. He sailed then with some playful condors until the sun slipped below the horizon leaving in its stead a bright magenta madness. He hovered for a moment in reverence to watch Mother Earth’s gentle breathing below and then a cloud caught him, sucking him up fast into her moist air.

Merry shouts of warning came from his flying clansmen from fields of yellow mustard below. Beware! The light is going! Elves must end their flights before night fall or they risk being mistaken for fire flies by little boys who capture them in jam jars and use them for flash lights. Fairy said this was an urban myth but Elf was not one for taking chances.