A lot of the people in my life had very unusual holidays. Certainly the economy had something to do with it, as did the weather, and a sad variety of different illnesses.

Mine have been a bit "off" as well, but nothing that a little botanizing won't cure. So I'm headed to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica to lose myself (one hopes not literally) in the wilds of Corcovado National Park. I've never been that far south in the country but I've now reserved a hammock with my name on it.

And now for something completely different...

photo credit: Behzad Rahmati

No need to alert the DEA, this is a field of wild poppies rioting in Turkey. The photographer who recently stood among them, Behzad Rahmati, would like to extend an invitation for people to come see the wildflowers in his country, too: Iran.

For years now, I've had a hankering to botanize in Turkey and see the ancestral home of tulips, crocus, iris and who knows how many other genera that evolved in that part of the world. Lo and behold, this looks like the year I'm going to get there.

It's all due to a woman named Holly Chase, an NPR listener who heard I was laid off and immediately deluged me with ideas for recreating myself.

And while I can't say I'm ready for a major overhaul, one of Holly's ideas is now a reality. Turns out she's been organizing tours to Turkey for several decades, and guess who'll be leading the next botanical one in April?

It's twue! It's twue! WANNA GO?

Talking Plants Entry #196

Dear Friends,

I thought it was Fred Rogers I was hearing in my head but I now realize it's Carol Burnett:

I'm so glad we've had this time together. Just to have a laugh or sing a song. Seems we've just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say...So long.

Through no fault of my own (management assures me "it's not personal"), I've been laid off from NPR.

Fortunately, it doesn't take a network to manage a website. Starting here, starting now, I've got my own. So nu, what else should I call it? Ketzel Uprooted! And where else would you find it but at WWW.KETZEL.COM!

Come by; we'll pick up where we left off and go places we haven't been. Lord knows I could use a change of scenery.

A word of thanks and three cheers to my online colleagues who I've enjoyed knowing and working with in the pursuit of Talking Plants: Wright Byan! Eyder Peralta! Andy Carvin! Beth Novey! Coburn Dukehart! Joe Matazzoni!

And to the woman who created the original NPR Talking Plants website, Thea Joselow, she who has gone on to far greater things.

Hold up, Thea. Here I come...

photo credit: don't remember!

Happy trails to you, until we meet again. Old dogs never die.

In case this is the first you're reading of this, I'd like to confirm the rumor that I've been laid off.

Or, to put it as it suddenly occurs to me, That's no rumor! That's my life!

And on the outside chance you've just stumbled onto this year and a half old blog and want to catch up — fast — my name is Ketzel Levine, I'm a senior correspondent for NPR and my job ends January 12th, 2009.

I was given the news 36 hours ago and I've been on the proverbial roller coaster ride ever since. Earlier this morning, when I took my first shot at this blog item, I wrote something to the effect that my being rift was not personal, "it's just what it is." And that, wait for it, "I've been one lucky woman, why should it end now?"

What was she on? I could use some of that tonight, as I look over at the clock and see that in the last hour I've written three sentences and chewed my nails and cuticles down to stumps. I've also been eating compulsively, only the richest most fattening things: organic peanuts, candy-coated toxic peanut M&M's, and for my last act before sleep, organic raw cashews.

In truth, there is no reason on earth why I shouldn't continue having a long and lively career. It could be in radio, in print, online or in public lectures, on tv shows and in books.

But there's a journey in-between and it heads right through the land of loss, which is where I'm reporting from tonight, live! and up to my neck in decades of memories of the people I've met and the places I've been because of this job...and the nail-bitten terror that the loss will drown me and I won't be able to breathe.

Which reminds me of breathing deeply and fully and one of the happiest moments of the last year. And that's how I'm going to get to sleep tonight in anticipation of a far better day sometime soon. Maybe even tomorrow.

photo credit: Dana Orrick

On a golden weekend in May on the Grand Ronde River, before the sun and warmth disappeared for another two months, Zoe Mae and I lucked out and ended up on a 6 hour raft trip that made me a lifelong convert to eastern Oregon.

If you happen to be a vegetarian, the news that a farmer's been losing money on his cattle and has decided to sell them is a good thing. The equation's very simple: fewer cows, fewer cows slaughtered.

I'm all for it.

But watching farmer Dave Burt nurse his lame bull and pick corn for his favorite Braunvieh cows — knowing he was days away from selling his entire herd — my heart broke for him much the same way it might have if he was about to lose his favorite dog.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Dave Burt inherited his uncle's 1000 acre farm only eight years ago, but from the ripe old age of 8 when he first drove his grandfather's tractor, he was primed to be a farmer. This picture was taken at an uncharacteristically still moment in his generally hectic life.

"I guess you'd call them my therapy," he said describing his relationship with his cattle. Having spent a few days with him observing that most of his time is spent behind the wheel of one noisy vehicle or another, I take his point. The quietest and most contemplative part of his working day has clearly been among his cattle, listening to them mooo and graze and watching them nuzzle. (These Braunvieh are so incredibly affectionate!).

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

I wish I could do a "flip book" version of my nuzzling cow pix, I just couldn't stop snapping shots of them (this cozy trio in particular). The tableau kept changing, as the little one nursed and the big one licked the mid-size mother. Affection? An itch? Mesmorizing, nonetheless.

In case you haven't heard the Morning Edition feature on Dave Burt, the reason he's giving up his cattle is because raising them has become unprofitable. His costs have doubled and tripled over the last few years, while cattle prices haven't budged.

Except recently, that is. Now they're plummeting. It appears he got out just in time — not an entire surprise, since successful 21st century farmers like Burt are as skilled at playing the market as they are about feeding the cows.

Dave Burt worries about the availability of meat should more and more small farmers his age (he's 56) decide their cattle aren't worth the work. If his own 50 and 60-something colleagues are any indication, a whole lot of farmers are poised to give them up.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

The happy ending to Dave Burt's story is that the cow he's most attached to — the one he raised from a bottle — is going to be living within visiting distance at his good buddy Clem's. I'm particularly happy to report that this animal will be kept in the style she's been accustomed: alive.

Incidentally, the real cash cow on Burt Farms is agriculture: corn, wheat, soybeans, sunflowers. So lucrative (she says, tongue firmly planted in cheek), that at the current market price for these commodities, Dave Burt will lose a quarter-million dollars next year if his seed, fertilizer and fuel costs are what they are today.

If it isn't already on your radar for the trip you will inevitably take to my fair city, Portland, OR. (enough about theirs), do not choose between this and fill-in-the-blank: Powell's, Multnomah Falls, Forest Park, your sister-in-law's. The name of the game here in any weather is the Classical Chinese Garden.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

The light was fading, the rain was falling and the leaves played like fish beneath one of the many pavillions that provide respite in the garden. Not a great many maples were still holding their leaves on this 1st day of December, but this little poser kindly obliged. Need sound? Give a listen to this story.

I am no indiscriminate city booster. And never mind that my voice is on the audio tour (snore). I have watched this garden grow and mature since its opening in 2000 and I now consider a good many of its plants my personal friends. As such, I can think of no other garden open to the public where it's absolutely always a good time to visit (OK, so skip it when it's crowded). Of course there are richer moments than others — particularly when fragrances float on the air — but the garden is simply too complex to reveal itself in any single day.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

The last fruit on a persimmon tree as shown off by a shower of weeping willow and the peaked roofs that take wing throughout the garden. I like to think of them as directionals to more celestial planes.

I fear you're going to want to know the name of the persimmon tree above. The number of Diospyros species is frightening so as of this writing I can't say for sure, except that because it's in the Chinese garden, it ain't going to be one of our native trees.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

It was probably 4:15pm when I stopped by to grab a few pictures, almost too late for natural light but high time for a tripod. Alas, none to be had. This low-growing camellia's blossoms were spread out in such a way that its flowers seemed to float along the ground.

I know it's amusing when death takes a holiday (see: movies, books, musicals, The Sopranos, etc), but infinitely less popular when a blogger does the same. And I didn't even go anywhere, at least not physically, though I do remember enjoying myself with Florence Of Arabia. And unless it was a nightmare, I'm pretty certain I was burgled; certainly, all my jewelry's gone.

As for the garden, it too seemed to have missed November having opted to stay October an extra couple of weeks. That's over now. The gold, pink, orange and red that's been flying like confetti now looks as celebratory as moldy cardboard — though the bite-size birch leaves do seem scattered like golden coins.

Hang on, something's just come back to me: a trip to the Chinese Garden here in Portland with my mom. Alas, though, I was without my camera, so I didn't think you'd want to hear about the sweet scent of small-flowered osmanthus or the delicate petals of fall-blooming camellia without
being able to see for yourself.

Forgive me if I was wrong and allow me to make amends. If there's still any light left after work today, I'll revisit the delicate camellia and ask her to pose...

Eat the view! Buy virtual pieces of the White House lawn! Roger the Gardener vs. Joe the Plumber! And now The Who Farm!

Introducing Daniel Bowman Simon and Casey Gustowarow, primary "WhoFarmers", two guys who are joining others in petitioning the White House to use some of its vast waste of a lawn to grow organic food.

Their petition is full of heartfelt recommendations to the Farmer In Chief-elect:

We, the people, respectfully request that an organic farm be planted on the grounds of The White House, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC.

The White House Organic Farm (aka TheWhoFarm) will be a model for healthy, economical and sustainable living everywhere. It will serve as an educational tool and economic aid, and as a means to provide food security in the Nation's Capitol. It will reconnect the Office of the Presidency to the self-sufficient agricultural roots of America's Founding Fathers.

The White House Organic Farm Recipe

Article I: The Farmers
Public school children and Americans with disabilities will work The White House Organic Farm, to set an example for the world of hands-on learning and will foster an independent, do-it-yourself work ethic.

Article II: The Eaters
The White House Organic Farm's harvest will provide fresh food for the President, the President's family, and the President's distinguished guests. Just as importantly, it will also supply healthy food to public school lunch programs and food pantries in Washington, DC.

Article III: The Delivery
Food from The White House Organic Farm will be delivered to local public schools and food pantries by volunteers on foot and by bicycle, at a net-zero cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Article IV: The Seeds
The White House organic farmers will plant a diverse mix of heirloom seeds passed down from Thomas Jefferson's farm at Monticello and seeds donated by American farmers and gardeners, to celebrate both the rich agricultural traditions of the Office of the President and the passions of everyday Americans for working her fertile and bountiful land.

Article V: The Soil
The White House Organic Farm will use healthy topsoil, nourished by compost supplements from yard and food waste from all three branches of the federal government; from The White House, from The United States Capitol, and from The United States Supreme Court.

A quick peek at what's going on these day on our Talking Plants Flickr group. The conversation went like this:

jesse.sexton: Cool shot, is this some variety of post processing or did you use radial blur or even a lens baby? Either way, very pretty.

pathos3: Thanks Jesse. Radial blur, b/w conversion, and sepia toning.

photo credit: pathos3

A shot taken at the Cathy Fromme Prairie, Fort Collins, CO. I'm sensing the beauty here in the process, not the plant.

Why not put your body (of work, anyway) in our pool; join the party.

When the Santa Barbara fire began last week in the community of Montecito, I thought of two people: T.C.Boyle and Ganna Walska.

I haven't contacted the author to see if his Wright-designed home suffered damage— if it has, the last thing he needs is unsolicited e-mail — but I do know he's spent the last decade not only churning out literature but pulling out weeds and establishing natives in his meandering woodland garden.

Eight years and a few lifetimes ago, I spent some seriously eye-opening time with Boyle. Step right up for a private radio tour of his place as heard on Morning Edition.

The Montecito garden I was really worried about is nothing less than my favorite private garden in the country, Lotusland, once the home and still the work of the flamboyant Ganna Walska, a woman whose greatest creation was undoubtedly her very self. I'm delighted and relieved to report that Lotusland was untouched by the fire.

photo credit: brewbooks

This otherwise quirky, fantastical and over the top garden is balanced by a (very) few tame and romantic spaces, including the Japanese Garden (pictured above) and the huge, former swimming pool Madam Walska turned into a lascivious water garden.

Lotusland doesn't actually get its name from the plant but from an evocative piece of music Madam Walska was particularly fond of written by the English composer, Cyril Scott (WRONG! See correction at end of story). You gotta hear it. Here it is as originally intended for piano (can anyone figure out who's performing?) and again as played by the great Fritz Kreisler who transcribed it for violin and piano. Shoot me but I like it best for solo piano.

photo credit: Van Swearingen

A peek at the magical Aloe Garden at Lotusland, a place stuffed not only with eye candy but with a world-famous plant collection of cycads, endangered prehistoric plants.

With all due modesty, I'd be delighted if you'd give a listen to this story about Ganna Walska. Not only was she quite a character, but her dramatic flair and idiosyncratic tastes have resulted in one of the most magical gardens I expect I'll ever know.

CORRECTION! Had I gone back and listened to my own story, rather than conjur it up from memory, I would have heard this:

Lotusland, one women's botanical fantasy, may be the most exotic public garden in the country. There's a chance you might even get to see it, should you make a reservation a year or two in advance. The place will leave you breathless—writhing aloes, ferns like fountains, valleys of prehistoric plants. Lotusland's Virginia Hayes likes to linger in the garden that gives the place its name.

Thanks to Virginia Hayes for alerting me that the Lotusland community was about to bust a pod and revoke my open invitation to heaven...

Maples, rhododendron, stewartia and fall crocus; tree bark backlit by warm, benevolent light. When last we visited the Platt Garden, my favorite of the plant meccas in this gardenesque town, even its often modest vine maple was feeling very fall.

Go ahead, pinch yourself. It won't change a thing. Life in this landscape is merrily but a dream.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

In this ever-changing corner of the garden, the centerpiece is the four-season Stewartia, a tree with great bark, late spring flowers, and delicious foliage. The purple flowers in the forefront are from the so-called obedient plant Physostegia virginiana a long-blooming East Coast native, and a bit behind and to the right are the naked red legs of a shrubby dogwood.

Among the genera championed by the late Jane Platt — a tradition continued by the very present David Platt — is the misunderstood rhododendron, a plant that is so much more than the average American landscape would lead you to believe. Admittedly, we're able to grow a huge variety of the shrubs in the PNW that might not thrive elsewhere, but my guess is there are still quite a number of the straight species rhodies worth a shot. (Straight species refers to plants as they appear in the wild, before they've been hybridized and "improved".)

What all the Platt gardeners know — there are three generations plus a Buddha-like one year old — is that leaves can be just as astonishing as flowers. And while the garden does have ample rhodie flowers each spring, the best rhododendron foliage holds its ornamental own year-round.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

These silvery blue leaves are covered in what's known in rhodie language as "indumentum", a soft and thin layer that can be rubbed off (not a suggestion, just a description of its texture). This particular species is R. pachysanthum (I think; I'm awaiting confirmation), a showy sophisticated shrub which has matured to a 3.5' x 3.5' size.

Many of us gardeners are collectors; I've got a couple of nice species rhodies myself. But the genius of the Platt Garden is the placement of its specimens with an eye towards the combination of texture, color and size.

Sounds like a simple formula but if you're a gardener you know how easy it is to get it not quite right (I don't believe any attempt in your own garden is wrong). If you're like me, you just let the plants do the talking and hope the conversation's interesting but in a garden this large you're talking cacophony if the leafy choir isn't in synch.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

In this tapestry, the explosion of stewartia color (there are several in the garden) is now off to the left; the rich purple and plums of a mophead hydrangea dominate the bottom right. This is one small corner of the rock garden (see rock) which is loaded with miniature treasures in spring and lots of year-round evergreen muscle.

Speaking of tapestries, you don't need a whole lot of material to create one. Not if you know how to play with plants.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

Here's the tableau up by the front of the house, featuring a spectacular weeping cedar (Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca Pendula' ) spilling over and around the golden foliage of the royal azalea (in truth a rhododendron), R. schlippenbachii. For scale, see that 6'2" Hunk'O'Man, my irresistible friend Kevin Teller.

With any luck, we'll hear from one of the Platts shortly, if only to tell me that I've gotten a plant i.d. wrong. Kailla, Buddha-mother? David, slave to Flora? Hope you guys'll stop by!

The campaign promises are over; now to deliver the sublime, as we throw open the gates of a private Portland garden on the headiest day of American democracy we are ever likely to know.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Welcome to the Platt Garden, the realized vision of one of the city's late great gardeners, Jane Platt. This three-acre specimen-rich paradise passed from wife to husband (the gentlemanly John Platt is now 96) and then to son. David Platt has been tending the landscape's botanical treasures for almost a decade, often collaborating with his daughter, Kailla Platt. Full disclosure: all three generations of Platts are dear and cherished friends.

The Platt Garden owes a great deal of its design beauty and plant palette to another of Portland's best places for plant nerds, The Gardens of Elk Rock at Bishop's Close. The plant passions of that garden's founder, Peter Kerr — who scored plants regularly from the East Coast and England — have resulted in a number of tree and shrub species that are the oldest of their kind in the PNW. Kerr had two daughters, both of whom gardened. The younger one was named Jane.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Fall-blooming crocus come in dozens of species and rarely do I see them with the same punch and presence as their chubbier spring-blooming cousins. For that reason, I found this small stand in the Platt rock garden a stand-out; I'll have to get back to you whether it's C. medius, C. cartwrightianus or for all I know C. spp. (the last of which translates as 'some species but who the hell knows which one').

One more teaser pix before the tour continues tomorrow. It's an image you've likely seen in one form or another before, because when it comes to pure sensuality, few things can beat a stewartia shedding its bark.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

Behold the exfoliating surface of Stewartia monadelpha.

Election Day 2008 and the city of Portland feels particularly benevolent today. The sun broke through an hour ago after a long hiatus and is now illuminating the considerable remains of what's been an autumn worthy of the name.

The mood here at my coffee house feels friendlier and more buoyant this morning; here in this bubble, there was never any contest how this town was going to vote. This state, either (as viewed from this bubble, that is). After considerable eavesdropping, I can't say anyone's talking about the election, but I would like to think all my ersatz young office mates are intensely aware of what hangs in the balance.

Anyway, enough stalling. On the outside chance that you've noticed, I've been gone more than a week.

What with my beagle's week-long disappearance, then — three days later — the burglary at my house (the dogs and I were sleeping at a friend's) and the unrelated but simultaneous burst of my water heater (a day after I'd moved my entire downtown office into my basement) followed in lock step by the inevitable invasion of my body by a vicious flu that has yet to release me, I've been AWOL from Talking Plants.

But I've a new lease today, in no small way due to this morning's sun break, which shines all that much brighter in a soothing (fine then, gray) climate like ours. And when that light illuminates the leaves of maples, stewartias, euonymous and aronia, you wonder why we're not all walking around dumbstruck by the inherent beauty of this world.

So here's my own campaign promise, before the votes are counted: join me tomorrow for an exclusive tour of one of Portland's finest private gardens and I guarantee — whatever the outcome of the election! — an invitation of limitless faith.

Go ahead, you skeptics, Google the Platt Garden! I guarantee you won't find another candidate who's got what I got for you...

Hi, I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of On The Media. Ketzel has overdosed on so many M&M's during this last week of worry over Starlet, her beagle, that I suggested she pass out for the weekend and let me do the heavy lifting. My involvement's not all that far-fetched since I am a distant relative of said beagle. Ketzel is my second cousin and our grandmothers olev hashalom were sisters.

And while I too like dogs very much, having grown up with a memorable Great Dane named Eurydice, I don't exactly share my cousin's sometimes excessive allegiance if not over identification with animals. I'm hoping this detachment will play in my favor, as I ask a few questions that may help us fathom why Starlet Blue Levine left home.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Poised somewhere between disdain and apathy, Starlet (left) wonders why she and the thing (Zoe Mae, right) are being addressed.

BG: Hi there Starlet, thanks for getting on the sofa.
SB: Are you here too? Are you eating something?
BG: Actually I wanted to talk to you about your recent disappearance. I understand that you took off Monday evening while Ketzel was out of the house.
SB: Does she have food in her pockets?
BG: In fact she does. Ketzel left and Zoe Mae opened the side door by putting her paws on the handle and jumping. Is that what you remember?
SB: Does she have a bowl outside?
BG: Yes, her bowl is outside. Is that where you were going?
SB: She smells but not much. But there is a smell. I remember now. And the smell gets closer and then it goes in a direction and I go in a direction.
BG: Right. Now from what we've pieced together from eyewitness reports, it seems you were following smells for about two hours before you were picked up. Do you remember where that was?
SB: BIG. SMELL. EVERYWHERE. I eat the smell.
BG: Exactly. You were eating garbage at the KFC on NE. MLK Blvd. Do you recall the people who picked you up and put you in their car?
SB: Are they here too?

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Joyce Crabbe and Mike Smith found Starlet at a KFC and brought her to their home. A few days later they took her to the vet's office to be scanned for a microchip, having worried that if they brought her to Animal Control the dog might be confiscated. Turned out Joyce and Mike used the same vet as Ketzel, and so! another victory for the kindness of strangers.

BG: Do you recall anything about your four-day stay with the people named Joyce and Mike?
SB: Cat. Food. Drawers. Vomit.
BG: That's what they tell us, too, that you had issues with their cat and that you went through every cabinet in their kitchen. My guess is that you found food and ate it but that it didn't agree with you so you threw up. Does that ring a bell?
SB: Are you here? Do you have food in your pockets?
BG: As a matter of fact, I do have a little something, a blue peanut butter M&M I picked up off Ketzel's bedroom floor. But let's focus for a sec on you. Since coming home and hearing about your friends and family's sleepless nights, the hours of searching, the hundreds of lost dog posters and the paid ads in The Oregonian, what do you think you've learned about running away?
SB: (Stretches.)
BG: Starlet?
SB: (Grunts, circles and lands, curled. Looks at interviewer out of one eye.)
BG: Indeed, Starlet. From your mouth to God's ears: There is no place like home.
SB: (Snores).

A final word: It may be that no one understands Starlet better than the cat who watches her every move. So it's not all that surprising that literary agents are all a-twitter about rumors of a manuscript now making the rounds Watch these pages for more news about STUDIES IN ATTACHMENT DISORDER: My Life With A Beagle, by Lulah Levine.

That's the headline, the happy ending details TOMORROW!!