Garden

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Steve Addazio called the three proposals on divisional alignment presented to the Big East football coaches and athletic directors at the conference's spring meetings a win-win-win situation for Temple. One proposal would split the league into East and West divisions beginning in 2013. Another called for North and South divisions. And the third would have a non-geographic alignment, splitting the West Coast schools, the Texas schools, and the Florida schools.

Sooner or later, there comes a gardening moment like this: It's hot. We're alone, watering, weeding. The chores are mundane, yet we're at peace, loving the warmth and repetition, the simplicity and silence. The garden, we come to realize, is a sacred place - not a religious experience necessarily, but a place that teaches us to truly see and authentically be. Here, too, among the lilies and tomatoes, we bear witness to ordinary events and stunning miracles - learning, from these plants and tasks, that often they are one and the same.

Bill Hengst's first career, as a city planner, lasted 25 years before he arrived at what he calls "my midlife correction. " "It was not a crisis," he insists. The short version of the story is that Hengst grew tired of master plans and office politics. His mother died. He bought a house in Mount Airy that had a yard. He planted a garden. The longer narrative is more complex, but the plot stays true: As the garden came alive, slowly, slowly, so did he. "I began to build a new life," he says happily.

Every year about this time - and then again at tomato starting time - I think about really doing my no-work gardening ploy. "Just once," I think, "I'll just do it this year and have a neat green garden with hardly any work. " Maybe this will be the year. After all, this will be the tenth season we've all been gardening on the Southwark/Queen Village Park and Garden. Maybe the soil needs a rest. Maybe I need a rest. (The tenth season! Oh wow.) The no-work ploy is not all no work.

A sad farewell took place in the dark the other night, just before the big cold front was due to arrive. Flashlight in hand, a forelorn gardener - who is inspired to frenzied activity by the first hint of spring, but who refuses to recognize the encroachments of winter - was out wrestling with giant clay pots, their contents heavy from recent rains but still boasting impressive displays of blossoms. It was a poignant moment. The impatiens were stoically bearing up, still dense with flowers.

David Braneky is thinning arugula shoots, weeding rows of baby broccoli, and feeling great. Of course, he is. His day-off to-do list is shorter by two tasks, and he gets to watch the miracle of spring unfold, row by row. Those are no small gifts, as every gardener knows. But Braneky, called "Pastor Dave" by his congregation at Lansdowne Baptist Church, experiences something else in the garden, too: a profound connection to the Earth, to his food supply, humanity, and community, and to his God. "For me, the garden is a spiritual place.

Let's be brave and assume the rain is over and we can count on a weekend in the garden. That said, the best starting point may be a book, since that's where the best garden and landscaping ideas can be found. As usual, there's something for everyone in the newest volumes. "The Small Garden Book" by John Brooks (Crown, $30) is a misleading title. Actually, it addresses small spaces, which is an appealing challenge no matter what the size of the garden or property. A valuable planning guide, it covers every aspect of planning and executing the small spaces, from courtyards and terraces to rooftops, balconies and alleys, on down to gardening in containers.

The Montreal Botanical Garden unveils a new attraction this month: a Chinese garden described as the largest outside Asia. Known as the Shanghai-Montreal Dream Lake Friendship Garden, the five-acre landscape has been in the planning stages for 11 years. Besides Canadian workers, the construction of the garden involved 48 craftspeople from Shanghai who spent six months living in trailers at the garden site. The garden duplicates a style popular with wealthy civil servants during the Ming Dynasty.

Though I may be a city person, every summer, when the daylilies bloom along the roadsides, I yearn to have the feeling of being once more in my mother's garden near the Delaware River in Trenton. She has been gone almost two decades now, but I remember the day my first cousin telephoned, just before I sold the family house, to ask if she could come by to transplant the garden to her own home across the river. I agreed and was touched by this gesture but thought no more of it as I struggled to dismantle the possessions of my parents' lifetime.

What we like: Crammed with garden decor, the West Conshohocken shop carries a variety of merchandise that runs from traditional pots and urns to antiques, imports and art pieces. The store is hidden among an enclave of industrial facilities on Union Hill Road. But the hilltop vista of the surrounding town and highways is exhilarating. The patient shopper will find many rewards. For starters, there are all shapes and sizes of pottery containers, some so large a hydraulic lift is needed to move them.

For gardeners and other plant-lovers, here's a sampling of regional events: Bucks County Designer House & Gardens Premier designers & landscapers revitalize an 1850s Dutch Colonial house, barn & pool into a timeless Bucks County estate. Bucks County Designer House & Gardens, 3864 Spring Valley Rd., Furlong. Reservations recommended: 215-345-2191. www.buckscountydesignerhouse.org/. $20-$25. 5/25. " Community Garden Days 10 percent of your purchase will be donated to a registered community garden of your choice (see the website to register a garden)

Digital cameras and smartphones have revolutionized garden photography like everything else. But, as Matthew Benson's new book, The Photographic Garden, illustrates so ably, new technology may have changed the tools, but the fundamentals of compelling photography are timeless. And so he writes for gardeners who want to see the garden differently through a lens, and thus, take better pictures. We can all use some help here, which makes Benson's introduction positively tantalizing: "Learning to see the garden photographically will make you a better garden designer, tuning your eye to the complex textural detail of plants, to the way they hold and transmit light, and to their posture and habit.

For gardeners and other plant-lovers, here's a sampling of regional events: Bucks County Designer House & Gardens Premier designers & landscapers revitalize an 1850s Dutch Colonial house, barn & pool into a timeless Bucks County estate. Bucks County Designer House & Gardens, 3864 Spring Valley Rd., Doylestown; Reservations recommended: 215-345-2191. www.buckscountydesignerhouse.org/. $20-$25. 5/18. " Burlington County Gardeners Association Plant Faire Plant sale featuring vegetables, herbs & ornamentals.

EVERYONE had written them off. The Sixers had just let a 3-1 series lead slip away in the 1982 NBA Eastern Conference Finals and now they faced Game 7 against the Celtics in Boston Garden, where the percentages said no one goes in and prevails. On top of that, history appeared to be repeating itself. Only a year before, the Sixers had allowed a 3-1 series advantage to slip away to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals in a Game 7 at Boston Garden. The agony of that collapse was accentuated by the widely held belief that both the Celtics and Sixers were a better team than the Houston Rockets, who had clinched the Western Conference crown.

A COMMUNITY GROUP that has gardened on vacant lots in Grays Ferry for 60 years won court approval on Tuesday to halt the sheriff sale of two lots that were scheduled to be sold Wednesday. "This is a real victory for the community," said Amy Laura Cahn, a lawyer who represents the Central Club for Boys and Girls. Cahn said Common Pleas Judge Leon Tucker ordered the sale postponed for six months. During that time, Cahn said, the Central Club hopes to get approval of its tax-exempt status from the city Office of Property Assessment.

Container gardening is hot, hot, hot. Ho hum. What's new is year-round container gardening, "changing out" your containers to match the season. This excites a lot of gardeners and retailers, but it sounds like a terrific amount of work and expense to me. Am I the only gardener who enjoys the offseason? So I admit, I opened Barbara Wise's new book, Container Gardening for All Seasons (Cool Springs Press, $21.99), with bias aforethought. And while I found many of the 101 designs she offers up pleasant to look at, I also found a surprising number that looked overstuffed, which you know comes at a cost.

Mulch mindfully. If you have newly planted trees or even old ones, consider mulching them to protect from mowers and weed whackers near their trunks. This is the main cause of tree death. Make sure mulch is not up against the trunk; this causes the bark to get moist and rot, which promotes disease. Keeping the trunk exposed encourages good tree health and stability. Mulching properly helps reduce temperature fluctuations in the soil and retain moisture. Grass also takes valuable water from the tree's root system.

For gardeners and other plant-lovers, here's a sampling of regional events: A Walk With the Curator Provides an in-depth look at the collections, gardens and plant selections at the Arboretum. Swarthmore College - Scott Arboretum, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore; 610-328-8025. 5/9. 2:30-3:30 pm. Annual Herb Sale Herbs, scented geraniums, salvias, native plants, & garden gifts. Historic Yellow Springs, 1685 Art School Rd., Chester Springs; 610-827-7414. 5/10. 10 am-1:30 pm. Annual Plant Sale One of the largest public garden plant sales in the area.

If Philadelphia and environs were a garden of poetry, it'd be … quite a garden. It'd be huge. This is a big poetry town that, while perhaps not as famed for verse as New York and San Francisco, is lush and fertile, especially during April, Poetry Month. No gardener could tend it all, much less get to it all. Too many events, readings, poets, speakers series (Bryn Mawr, Green Line Cafe, Moonstone Arts Center, Monday Poets at the Free Library, Kelly Writers House), and poetry groups (Moles Not Molars!