THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409090264
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
Loretta and Leslie Harlow's garden has a far-reaching reputation, but it's local folks that benefit the most from the luxuriant, colorful border along the bike path between Great Neck Road and Seashore State Park.
Bicyclists and walkers, to a man, turn their heads as they pass by the Harlow's little Eden that has grown up over several decades around their home on Hatton Street off Shore Drive.
Loretta Harlow cares for all flowers, and Leslie Harlow tends to the rest. Between them, they've built a garden that is nothing less than a unexpected gift to all who pass by.
It's so beautiful that artists sit by the trail to capture the garden on canvas. Folks stop and ask about plants, and admirers from as far away as England have sent special packets of seeds to the Harlows.
``Les talks to everybody on the bike trail,'' Loretta said. ``English people especially like it. They say it looks like an English garden. In spring it's so lush that it surprises everyone.''
This time of year, the bright, late-summer colors of red cardinal flower, orange and crimson nasturtiums, yellow Mexican sunflowers and and multlihued zinnias are the surprise along the otherwise green bike path borders.
And that's not all. Leslie has planted Japanese quince, peach trees, figs, Jerusalem artichokes and other edibles up and down both sides of the bike path. Although within easy reach of all who pass by, the garden is not bothered by an appreciative public. The worst that's happened is a missing piece of fruit.
Health problems have slowed her 75-year-old husband, a retired carpenter, said Loretta Harlow. Otherwise, she said, he would have planted the trail sides all the way to Great Neck Road by now!
Those that take the time to look beyond the garden fence and into the Harlow's backyard are apt to see other fascinations. Three of them are large overhead installations, created by their sculptor son, Burrus, and include a giant metal skeleton. It looms over the vegetable garden like a scarecrow.
Several rows of cotton as tall as Loretta herself are blooming away. ``Next year maybe we'll try tobacco,'' she said.
The couple will try most anything in fact. This year Loretta experimented with a red, white and blue garden scene. She planted red cardinal vines, white moonflower vines and blue morning-glories for a patriotic look that didn't quite work out, she said, because the moonflowers bloom at night and the others, during the day.
Loretta picked a morning-glory, a clear sky-blue flower that fades to a white center.
``Look at this,'' she said. ``Man just can't duplicate nature. It's like an angel's trumpet, it's so delicate and beautiful.''
The couple welcome last year's seedlings that crop up everywhere. ``Look at these old butternut squash,'' Leslie said. ``They just came up.''
And there they were: big butternut squash, ready for the oven, lying on the ground underneath the patriotic vines. Nearby, Chinese pleated squash looked more planned. The vines, growing tall on bamboo supports, bore cucumber-shaped fruit with deep lengthwise ridges.
Several tall, deep-red amaranths were putting forth giant seed heads. Nearby an unusual variety of amaranth with long, skinny, drooping pinkish-red flowers had the quaint name, ``love lies bleeding.'' The Harlows grew the plant from seed that was sent to them by a woman who worked at an arboretum in New York and who had enjoyed the garden on a visit to Virginia Beach.
Huge tomato plants were in the midst of a stunning late summer effort, bearing scads of green and red tomatoes. Rows of pale green, orange and red banana peppers were pushing toward fall with vigor, too.
String beans climbed bamboo poles in the shape of 10-foot-high tents. ``They're like `Jack and the Beanstalk,' '' Loretta said.
In fact, Leslie recently planted his second crop of string beans and those beanstalks should be bearing in December.
``We're protected here, and it's a rare thing when we can't come in the garden and find something to eat,'' Loretta said. ``And there's always at least one bloom you can put in the house on a cold winter's day.''
Or, liven up a cycler or a walker's journey along the bike trail.
P.S.: Sample a Sampler, a program to introduce children, 8 to 12, to the art of stitchery, will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at historic Francis Land House. Members of the Tidewater Sampler Guild will teach participants to cross-stitch a small sampler project. The $3 fee includes supplies. Call 340-1732.
THE VISITOR CONTACT STATION at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge will be closed on Saturdays, beginning in September. The station's new hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Refuge trails are open dawn to dusk daily. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Loretta and Leslie Harlow stand in their garden that is along the
bike path between Great Neck Road and Seashore State Park.
by CNB