Battening Down

Hurricane Sandy is still miles out to sea. But the winds are already whipping the trees. Stray plastic bags in the streets have been carried aloft on the winds and hover in mid-air like Halloween ghosts. Leaves swirl down the streets.

And my garden? Anything I can carry has come inside. But I worry about the flowers around the tree, the butterfly bushes, and especially the giant euonymus bushes clinging to their shaky trellises. So while others were shopping for batteries today and picking the grocery-store shelves clean, I went to 14th Street Garden Center for emergency advice on how to protect my plants. The best we could come up with for the euonymus in their giant containers was to reinforce the trellises with six 6-foot long stakes. The juniper has been pulled in closer to the house. I’ve harvested the last of the parsley, basil, and cherry tomatoes.

Hoping for the best …