Rachel Carson and the Secret Garden

            Having been apart of the Chatham community for about four years I was surprised to hear fellow members of The Mortar Board, a senior honors society, discuss an on-campus service project of planting in the Rachel Carson Garden.  The surprise was not due to addition of more plants to Chatham’s campus, but because in all my time researching Chatham and attending the university, I had never once heard reference to this allusive “Rachel Carson Garden”.

            My visit this past week was very similar to my first visit to the garden to begin planting with the Mortar Board.  Both days were brisk, a thick sweatshirt able to keep the chill away, even though there should be a greater difference between October and January.  There is a wetness that hangs in the air and coats the concrete stairs which lead down the side of Buhl, the science building.  The concrete ends abruptly; giving way to a trail that seems to have been created by continual passage of students looking for a shortcut to the apartments, which in turn has left a crater for an ever-present blob of water stuck in the stage between pond and puddle.  Nestled snuggly beside the brick structure of the stairs, in the patchy area between Buhl and the Laughlin Music Hall, sits the Rachel Carson Garden.

The garden still seems empty, with just a few tree-like shrubs fighting their way through winter.  But if I look close enough in the fading light, I can see the remains of the now dormant plants I helped to plant.  I crouch down to get a closer look at a section of plants closest to the edge of the small garden.  My balance is uneasy and I fear falling back into the surrounding mud.  I rest my fingers against the mulch to steady my wobble.  The ground is cool to the touch and I am not surprised to find patches of snow that have evaded the heat of the sun.  Now closer to the ground I can make out where the soil has more recently been disturbed, where the dark red leaves of my plant still remains.  And this one is mine.  I remember planting it, knees sinking into the soft grass while I tucked the fledgling in with a mix of compost and clay-like soil. 

But that was a clear fall morning, and this is an unusually warm winter evening.  The trees’ bright leaves replaced by the lights of Shady Side as they flicker on to combat the darkening grey sky.  If it wasn’t for the light of the Buhl Atrium I wouldn’t have been able to make it that far along the garden.  Still, the light is not enough for me to make out the thin, blue plant identifier three bunches of red leaves away from my plant.  When we had planted the dozen or so new additions to the Rachel Carson Garden that October morning, I was educated on each plant name, when they would look their brightest, what they would look like, and why they were good for the garden.  That information faded quicker than the written plant identifiers.  And so all I can leave with tonight is some soggy red leaves and mud caked boots.