The Honor System

Steve and Lisa, H.'s college friend and his wife, are in from California to visit Steve's mom, Anne, who lives here in Clifton. We stopped by this evening, and Anne's sun porch and garden were ablaze with color---hot pink, yellow, orange, sky blue. Turns out that she goes to the same garden center I love: Bartlett's Greenhouses & Florist on Grove Street.

The Honor System for Begonias
Part of the charm of this family business is that when you're feeling really low, but your pockets are empty, and nothing will quite perk you up like a confident, candy-pink dahlia plant [that's a dahlia, pictured above] or some black-eyed Susans, you can go to Bartlett's and they'll put your purchase "in the book."

The book is a plain old marble composition notebook in which one of the young women writes your name, address, and phone number, and the amount of money you owe. It can be a lot or a little [not the flower bill for your wedding or a funeral, obviously, but I have been booked for a wrought-iron flower box with holder and pretty plants to fill it, maybe $70 total]. The June two years ago when we lost Punch after hoping to adopt her, I headed to Bartlett's and got armloads of pink flowers to plant....deadhead, dig, plant, water, feed, admire, arrange......pink, pink, pink to try and color my dark feelings of loss and emptiness, to fill the hole.

Beyond that, as everybody knows, flowers are the perfect way to accessorize your plain green lawn. They add regal beauty, old-fashioned elegance, sweet scents and a sense of timelessness....people have been cultivating roses for ages. Hydrangeas are a classic. Sunflowers shout fun. Pansies can be shy and retreating or bold and bright.

Bartlett's doesn't take credit cards--just checks or cash. And once, when Moey needed flowers to bring somewhere but only had her credit card, she used the book, too. After her beloved grandfather, Pop, died at age 100, I brought her a wooden box of paperwhites from Bartlett's.

Can't Hold a Candle to This
Bartlett's also carries very tall colored tapers that burn for hours and hours. I started the new year by stopping in for some on January 1. Wanted a bright start to 2010. I put my name in the book.

I only remembered to stop in and pay my bill [of under $30] about a month or two ago, but they didn't mind.

Thank you, beautiful suburban business with giant small-town heart.