“The home garden: Spending more, enjoying it longer - MLive.com” plus 4 more

The home garden: Spending more, enjoying it longer - MLive.com
The secret garden of kidnapped Jaycee Lee - The Australian
Henry Homeyer: Elderberries, gooseberries an often-overlooked garden ... - Fosters Daily Democrat
Weeding out the Garden State - Washington Times
Woman stabbed, allegedly for - Recorder Community Newspapers

The home garden: Spending more, enjoying it longer - MLive.com

Posted: 30 Aug 2009 05:32 AM PDT

by Kim Cook | The Associated Press

Retail may be in a drought, but for many garden supply stores, it's been a green season in more ways than one.

We're paying a lot more attention to beautifying our own backyards, perhaps because we're traveling less. Americans are spending about 20 percent more than last year on planters, benches and outdoor accessories, according to online sales tracker CSN.

Clockwise from above, the Outdoor Great Room Fire Pit from Patio Heaters and More; poly resin planters from Arizona Pottery; a Gothic Quatrefoil stepstone from Target; and the Amazing Grace Windchime from Target.

That's what often happens during a recession, apparently. Sharon Acocella, manager of Tony's Nurseries in Larchmont, N.Y., remembers her old boss saying years ago, "Economy's doing badly; we'd better buy heavy." She reports that while there's been a falloff in some categories -- notably statuary and fancier items -- there has been vigorous activity on other fronts.

"Blue and black glazed pots are more popular than ever," she says. "We've reordered those, and many of our square and rectangular containers, too."

Next door at Larchmont Nurseries, Gloria DeMatas and Donna Bianco echo the positive assessment. They've done well with wind chimes, window boxes and pottery. "We've sold lots of cobalt blue pots. They're so eye-catching; they stand out nicely in the garden, and all flowers look beautiful in a blue pot," says DeMatas.

Birdbaths are another brisk seller.

"Right now, people are enjoying staying at home," Bianco says. "Inside and out, they want to surround themselves with things that make them happy."

People investing the last of their discretionary cash in their gardens probably want to enjoy them beyond the summer.

Pam Brooks, president of online retrailer Arizona Pottery, likes the durability of polyresin planters, which resist the stresses of freeze and thaw and are conveniently lightweight.

"They're crack-proof, weather-proof, and will never fade like plastic," Brooks says.

A wide palette of hues, and styles ranging from classical to modern, make these a versatile choice.

For something a little different, Brooks suggests Vietnamese river clay pots, known for weather hardiness.

Terra cotta is often rejected by consumers as delicate, but Brooks says "clay's a natural material that, more than any other, creates a perfect ecological environment." Plant roots maintain an even temperature in clay, which absorbs excess moisture. But the pots can dry out, and do need to be protected in winter.

Try painting the pots inside and out with an insulating liquid resin. And make sure your plantings are well "crocked" by adding a bottom layer of pebbles or broken pottery for drainage. Set saucered containers on pot feet and keep watering whenever the soil feels dry. Move potted perennials to a sheltered spot when the harsher weather arrives.

Firebowls and pits are increasingly popular in colder climes. Tabletop and floor model propane-fed heaters, long popular in the Southwest, have found a wider audience. There are many versions of the firepit, some incorporating a coffee table or at least a ledge to support a smores stick.

For something more unusual, consider the chimenea, or chimneyed outdoor oven; it serves well in the wind, and channels any excess smoke skyward. Online retailer Teak, Wicker and More has some attractive cast-iron designs, while FirePitsCentral has a huge range of bowls and heaters.

There are other intriguing garden accents sturdy enough to take on the elements. Target's copper rain chain, an Asian garden fixture, channels runoff down its links from the edge of a structure. Temple bells or laminated wood wind chimes provide soothing tones when the weather turns gloomy.

Target's also got stepping stones made of recycled plastic or frost-resistant cast concrete, to mark a path in style.

Nestle one of Chiasso's stainless steel spheres amongst the greenery and watch how the light plays.

And finally, Castart Studios in British Columbia makes a collection of yukima-gata, or snow-viewing lanterns, which would be lovely in a winter landscape.

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The secret garden of kidnapped Jaycee Lee - The Australian

Posted: 30 Aug 2009 06:11 PM PDT

THE nine-year-old boy was quite taken with the blonde he spotted across the fence that separated their bungalows. He had not seen her before and thought she was pretty. She told him she was living there and her name was Jaycee.

Moments later a lanky, forbidding man appeared, grabbed the girl and bundled her away. Later that day the man started building a 1.8m fence around his back garden and Patrick McQuaid, now 27, never saw the girl again. "I was young, and didn't think anything of it," he recalls. "But she sure was pretty."

McQuaid reckons that encounter happened in July 1991, a hot and dusty summer in the town of Antioch, east of San Francisco, northern California. If his memory is correct, this was about a month after Jaycee was kidnapped at a bus stop near her home in Lake Tahoe, 270km away.

According to charges filed in court on Friday, it would also have been around the time the 11-year-old girl was first raped by Phillip Garrido, a sex offender.

McQuaid's sighting was the first of many missed opportunities to rescue the girl. As it turned out, Jaycee faced another 18 years of captivity, a prisoner in a hidden compound of huts and tents where she gave birth to two children, now aged 11 and 15.

Jaycee's ordeal came to a sudden end last week when Garrido, 58, walked into a police station. Jaycee, now 29, was instantly recognised to her mother Terry and her half-sister Shayna. A relative says the reunited family has been crying and laughing ever since.

California police have been honest about blunders in trying to crack this grotesque cold case, which might have been solved years ago.

In November 2006 Erika Pratt, a neighbour in Antioch, heard the sound of hammering as Garrido erected another shed. Garrido had talked to her in the street, speaking about "God's voices", which were helping him deal with anger issues and sex. This had made Pratt feel so queasy that she phoned the police and urged them to check on the compound. She told them he might be a religious psychotic with a sex addiction.

On Friday Warren Rupf, the local sheriff, confessed Pratt might have been right. "A deputy responded to the call and spoke to the homeowner in the front of his house. He did not feel he had reason to enter, and so did not realise there was a hidden compound with children living in it behind the house," Rupf says. "I do not blame him; I blame myself."

Rupf's department was not alone in missing the clues. Garrido was a registered sex offender who met his parole officer every month. The officer visited Garrido at home, checking that his satellite-linked ankle bracelet was working properly. But he never looked into the back garden and its tent city.

Last year Garrido was twice visited at home by police. The first time he was questioned about accusations that he swindled $US18,000 ($21,000) out of an elderly neighbour: a donation to his "church of God's desire". Then, in July last year, his house was searched by police. However, as it was a routine search ordered under sex-offender laws they were not looking for anything specific.

They did not notice the cables that ran from the house though a fence door concealed by a tarpaulin and into a 42m by 27m backyard within the backyard.

"Barriers had been built to obstruct viewing from the outside and prevent the victims contacting the outside world," says an investigator. "There were tents and showers and a chicken shed where the three girls lived.

"That's where we think he may have raped the victim and where, without any medical aid, she gave birth to his two children. The first time when she was 14. This is the area where this girl was trapped, for 18 years. Where this child raised her kids alone. He is one evil bastard."

On the morning of June 10, 1991, wearing a pink top and matching trousers, Jaycee was walking down the street towards a bus stop within sight of her home. This time the familiarity of the scene was shattered by a car, which did a U-turn in front of the girl.

"I was watching out for her from my garage 200m away when I saw a grey sedan pull up besides her on the street and a man reach out and snatch her up in a moment," recalls her stepfather Carl Proby. "It was all over so fast."

He jumped on to his bicycle and gave chase, but the car vanished. The middle-class town of South Lake Tahoe was traumatised. Locals were encouraged to wear pink ribbons to keep Jaycee at the forefront of people's minds. Vigils and marches were held. The FBI and local police interviewed nearly 5400 people and pursued more than 4000 leads.

Last week his father, Manuel Garrido, 88, choked as he recalled the boy who went so wrong. "He was a very gentle and sweet child, very popular with a lot of friends. They loved his jokes. He played guitar, and liked the Beatles," he says.

"But then, at high school, he started getting into drugs and his personality changed. After he found LSD, he started going crazy, and I lost him. I miss the boy, but the man, not so much."

In 1976 Garrido was sentenced to 50 years jail after he kidnapped and raped a 25-year-old woman in Reno, 32km across the Nevada border from Tahoe. The detective who led the investigation, Dan DeMaranville, 74, says Garrido came across as intelligent and educated.

"I asked him after he confessed why he did it, and he said it was the only way he could get sexual satisfaction," DeMaranville says.

Garrido was held in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, but released 11 years later on parole after he claimed to have "found God". He travelled back to California with his new bride, a Philippines-born woman called Nancy, 54, who also stands accused of taking part in years of sexual assaults against Jaycee. They each face 29 charges.

Photographs give some clues to the life lived by Jaycee and her daughters in the garden campsite. Her living quarters appear to have been a three-man tent, patched up with tape, in which some of her clothes, a grey selection of cardigans and blouses, hang over a clothes rail. On her sheetless mattress lay a jumble of children's wear and a puppet.

A bookshelf contains 20 books, most of which had titles relating to cats, including Do Cats Think? and The Cat Who Went to Paris. Elsewhere, children's playthings - a packet of crayons, a couple of cuddly toys - are scattered. A bunch of flowers in a disused soft drink bottle sits on a ramshackle bedside table.

There is also a book titled Self-Esteem: a Family Affair, which deals with bringing up children and ways of giving them confidence. One of its chapters is headed: "What's a Nice Family Like Us Doing in a Place Like This?" The neighbours did not think that there was a "nice family" living next door. Yet they did little to intervene, even though Garrido was known locally as "Creepy Phil".

In a conservative town where many children are taught at home, appearances fooled many. Others did not want to get involved. Deepal Karunaratne, a real estate agent who employed Garrido to print flyers and business cards, says the Garridos introduced him to their blonde blue-eyed "daughter", Jaycee.

"Only he said she was called Allissa, and one of her daughters was called Scarlett," he says. "Jaycee was part of the family business, running the printing press in the back yard. I would see her in work overalls, covered with ink, (and) negotiated with her when she could not complete my order. She was always polite and professional."

Why didn't she try to escape? Reports suggest that Jaycee's spirit was broken by the years of incarceration and that she had reached a point of accepting her fate. She tells her parents that her children didn't know Garrido had abducted her, and her stepfather says that she regards their relationship as like a marriage.

Karunaratne is haunted by what has been uncovered. "Over the last three years he (Garrido) grew more intense about his religion. He said that God was speaking to him through this machine, and asked me to listen through headphones and sign a form saying I'd heard the voices too."

The second cold finger running down Karunaratne's spine is Garrido's account of a day when he took Jaycee on a "mission" to a nearby town called Pittsburg. "His car broke down on the way home, and he phoned me up for a lift back. I told him to take the bus."

On Friday, Pittsburg police provided a judge with evidence to obtain a warrant to search Garrido's house. They are seeking evidence in connection with the murder of up to 10 prostitutes whose bodies were dumped at an industrial park in Pittsburg during the late 1990s.

Was Garrido taking Jaycee and the children he fathered back to the scene of a series of serial killings?

Last week Garrido visited the San Francisco offices of the FBI, leaving a "manifesto" saying that schizophrenia was not an illness but a conduit of God being repressed by evil doctors.

Later that day he went to a nearby campus of the University of California. He spoke to Lisa Campbell, a special events manager and former police officer, who was struck by his peculiar manner.

When he returned she made sure she had a campus police officer with her. Allison Jacobs, 35, noticed the girls seemed to avoid meeting his eye.

"The older one was treating him as if he was a god, but they both looked like brainwashed zombies," Jacobs says.

She ran Garrido's name through a computer and found his sexual history. She called his parole officer and told him about her concerns. "The parole officer says, 'He doesn't have any daughters', and my stomach just sank," Jacobs says.

On Wednesday the parole officer summoned him to a police station. Much to the officer's amazement Garrido turned up with a woman and two blonde blue-eyed children in shabby clothes.

The charade crumbled as Garrido was moved to another room and Allissa revealed her identity, stuttering as she said she had not spoken her name for 15 years. She asked to speak to her mother: when she got through, her mother thought it was a prank.

Garrido was arrested but did not stay quiet. "It's a disgusting thing by me that took place at the beginning, but I turned my life around."

At least for Jaycee and her mother Terry, this long nightmare is coming to a close. Terry must deal with the experience of discovering that she is a grandmother by the child whom she last saw as an 11-year-old.

The Sunday Times

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Henry Homeyer: Elderberries, gooseberries an often-overlooked garden ... - Fosters Daily Democrat

Posted: 30 Aug 2009 06:37 AM PDT

My elderberries (Sambucus canadensis) are starting to ripen, and I bet the birds in my neighborhood are singing my praises for planting them.

Yes, I do sometimes pick some berries for juice, and once I made some truly horrible wine with them, but my elderberries are primarily for the birds — literally.

According to "Trees, Shrubs and Vines for Attracting Birds" by Richard DeGraaf, the berries of American elder are a preferred food for 14 species of birds, including some I am pleased to have around: robins, bluebirds, cardinals, thrushes and the rose-breasted grosbeak; another 21 species eat the berries on occasion. It is used for nesting by mockingbirds, catbirds, yellow warblers and goldfinches, among others.

It is used for cover by 26 species of birds. Overall, it is one of the better things you can plant if you like attracting birds. Thumbing through DeGraaf's book, it appears that only grapes are used by more species, and maybe some types of cherries.

Elderberries grow best in moist places, though will grow almost anywhere. Unlike blueberries, they will grow not only in acidic soil, but in alkaline soil. I grow mine right next to a brook where their roots stay nice and moist.

My books tell me that they spread by root suckers, though mine have not spread aggressively. In 8-10 years they have expanded from a plant in a 3-gallon pot to a clump perhaps 10 feet across. Each plant is 8-12 feet tall. I've been told that growing 2 different named cultivars of elder increases fruit load, though that is not essential.

I love my elderberry in the spring. It blooms magnificently — the entire top of the plant alive with clusters of white flowers arranged in cymes and populated with bees. A cyme is "a more or less flat-topped determinate inflorescence whose outer flowers open last" (per "Manual of Woody Landscape Plants" by Michael Dirr). Think Queen Anne's Lace on steroids. And they are fragrant. You can make tea from them, and some people do — though I haven't, as yet.

In late summer or early fall, elderberries come ripe. It is somewhat of an old-fashioned fruit, generally favored by people in their 70s and 80s for its jelly-making potential. The berries are BB to pea-sized, so I use my pruners to cut off the cymes.

If you use it for jelly, juice or wine, I suggest you pull the berries off their stems, as the stems are somewhat noxious tasting. A report from Purdue University indicates that elderberry outperforms both cranberries and blueberries as an antioxidant, and for levels of vitamins A and C. It is rich in calcium and iron, too. In folk medicine, it has commonly been used for treating colds and rheumatism.

As a landscape plant, American elder is not perfect. It is weak-wooded, so stems break easily in ice storms. It is a short-lived plant, but sends up suckers, so normally that is not a problem.

There are now available a number of named cultivars, including two dark-leaved ones, 'Black Beauty' and 'Black Lace.' They are actually Sambucus nigra, a European species, which is less winter-hardy than our native form. I tried a 'Black Beauty,' and it only lasted two years for me.

Other berries: When I was a boy, my grandfather grew gooseberries and currants (Ribes spp.). Unfortunately, they are secondary hosts for the white pine blister rust, a disease that can kill pine trees. In New Hampshire and Maine (but not Vermont), there are restrictions and prohibitions about growing these tasty fruits.

There are now named cultivars resistant to this malady that are available and legal to plant. For New Hampshire, go to http://agriculture.nh.gov/documents/FinalRibesList2009.pdf for a complete list of approved cultivars. In Maine, contact your local extension agent.

Gooseberries (Ribes hirtellum) are easy to grow, and very tasty not only in pies, but straight off the bush. They can be as small as a pea or as big as a small plum, and range in color from green to lavender to a deep red.

They have a nice crunch, and taste something like a cross between a kiwi and a grape. They grow on bushes that rarely exceed 5 feet in height or diameter.

The late Lewis Hill of Greensboro, Vt., loved gooseberries, claiming that no pie can beat a well made gooseberry pie for flavor. His book, "Fruits and Berries for the Home Garden," is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in growing any small fruits.

Red and black currants are grown widely in Europe and made into a variety of soft drinks and throat lozenges. They are tasty off the bush or cooked into jellies or juice.

Once you have tasted them, you will probably want to grow them. They are generally pest- and disease-free, but can suffer from powdery mildew in wet summers like this one.

Having had an Irish great-grandmother, I like to diversify what I grow. The potato famine was a severe problem, in part because only one kind of potato was grown. So I like to grow many different kinds of fruits and vegetables. I lost a lot of raspberries to fungus this year, but my blackberries are great, and it looks to be an excellent year for elderberries.

Now I just need some gooseberries.

Henry Homeyer's website is www.Gardening-Guy.com. He can be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH.

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Weeding out the Garden State - Washington Times

Posted: 30 Aug 2009 02:22 PM PDT

Weariness with political corruption could benefit GOP

By Donald Lambro (Contact) | Monday, August 31, 2009

Democrat Jon Corzine won the governorship of New Jersey four years ago pledging to bring needed change to a state defined by corruption and the highest property taxes in the country.

And four years later, things did change. The state's Democratic political establishment became more corrupt than ever and its tax burdens heavier than before, in part due to a pay-to-play culture of corruption the governor did little if anything to combat and a bunch of new fees and taxes Mr. Corzine enacted in the midst of the recession.

Then along came U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie for the district of New Jersey, a beefy, crime-fighting palladin who promptly began filling up the state's prisons with scores of crooked politicians, including mayors, lawmakers and other elected and public officials.

Mr. Christie soon became the most famous crime fighter in the state and a breath of fresh air to its dispirited voters, and polls were showing the New Jersey Republican leading Mr. Corzine by double-digits. He resigned his post in December and began a campaign to clean up Trenton, rebuild the state's battered economy through lower taxes, and enact a new code of stringent ethical reforms throughout the government.

But before Mr. Christie stepped down, he had won convictions or guilty pleas from 130 public officials and had put in place a massive, statewide investigative net that last month snared another 44 public officials -- with more arrests likely.

The latest arrests couldn't have come at a worse time for Mr. Corzine. They showed that statewide corruption ran deeper than even the most cynical observers had feared and that the only political solution was to install a reform government determined to clean house.

Mr. Christie doesn't mince words when he talks about who bears the lion's share of the blame, placing it squarely on the governor's doorstep.

Mr. Corzine, he says, is an "obvious bystander," an "enabler" of corruption and "the No. 1 financier of corrupt politicians and county bosses in New Jersey."

Heading into August, Mr. Christie had been leading by anywhere from 10 to 14 points as Mr. Corzine's job approval numbers tumbled. In the last month, however, the race has tightened slightly, as Democrats mounted a fierce counteroffensive, charging that Mr. Christie has skeletons in his closet that raise questions about his own credibility on ethical issues.

Among the charges: a 10-year, interest-bearing $46,000 loan he and his wife made to a top aide in the U.S. attorneys office in need of financial help that he neglected to report on his tax filings or financial disclosure forms.

Mr. Christie recently apologized for failing to report the loan and said he had amended his tax filings: "When I make a mistake, I'm going to admit them. It was certainly nothing that I was trying to conceal or hide."

But these and other charges have apparently cut into his lead, though Mr. Corzine's approval numbers remain in the basement. A Rasmussen poll last week showed Mr. Christie ahead with an 8-point lead, 50 percent to 42 percent, with 7 percent "not sure." Even so, Mr. Corzine's job approval numbers are very weak: 35 percent approve but 65 percent disapprove.

"There is a natural tightening occurring. We've long expected it would. New Jersey is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, so we never expected a 14-point lead to hold," said Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association. "It can be attributed to a variety of factors. Some to the fact that Corzine is slinging mud, some to the fact that the base of Democrats is solidifying toward Corzine, but mostly as election day nears, polls tend to tighten," he told me.

New Jersey voters, who will go to the polls this November, have not elected a Republican to statewide office since 1997, and, though they may be turning against Mr. Corzine now, past elections often show that Democratic candidates tend to move into the lead in the race's closing weeks.

There is another big factor that works in the Democrats' favor. Mr. Corzine, a multimillionaire who made a fortune on Wall Street as a chief executive with Goldman Sachs, is self-financing his campaign and will easily spend $30 million to $40 million on his race. Mr. Christie, however, is abiding by state public financing and will have a total of $11.5 million to spend.

But maybe New Jersey voters have had enough of one-party rule and a state political machine that is one of the most corrupt in the country. Republicans are optimistic that this time will be different.

"Corzine can spend $40 million distorting Chris Christie's record, but what he can't change is his record over the past four years," Mr. Ayers said.

"Is corruption a big problem? Wow, is it," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University polling institute. "Almost everyone in New Jersey thinks so. And two-thirds feel personally embarrassed to live in a state where politicians are pictured in handcuffs."

Donald Lambro is chief political correspondent of The Washington Times.