Radio host plants addictive seed in unsuspecting home
/The Boston Herald
Beverly Beckham
At first it was background noise, nothing more, I swear. I wasn't really listening to the man on the radio talking about root balls, and even if I were, I was only half listening. I was curious, that's all. Not addicted. Not yet.
But now I am. Come 7 a.m. on Saturday mornings I'm up and tuned in to 99.1 FM, sitting at the kitchen table listening to Paul Parent tell me things like "clematis requires sweet soil" and the way to make soil sweet is to sprinkle a little lime into it, but not bone meal because that attracts animals.
I don't even have any clematis. I don't even know what clematis looks like or where it grows, but here I am hanging on Parent's every word, shushing my husband, who reminds me that the way to make coffee sweet is to sprinkle some Sweet'n Low into it, and would I mind telling him where I've hidden it this time?
Parent is addictive. He talks nonstop for hours about soil and airborne diseases that can do in your plants, about when to water and when not to, about annuals and perennials and hybrids and suckers and whorls. Listeners call in and describe their almost-on-life-support trees and plants and ask the strangest questions, and he always has the answer. And I sit next to the radio and cheer him on.
The truth is, I carry the radio with me everywhere Saturday mornings, upstairs, downstairs, in the front yard, in the back yard. "I can't talk now," I say when the telephone rings. "Don't talk," I say if I have to drive with someone in the car. Something is happening to me.
Parent effuses about lamb's ears and spicebushes and I, who have never seen either, suddenly want to run out and buy one of each because he says lamb's ear is a wonderful perennial for an outside garden and I have an outside garden, sort of. And I want a spicebush because he says they have a nice, spicy smell. Wisteria is the fastest-growing vine, he says. And the more you dead head (that's plant talk for picking off dead flowers), the faster new flowers will blossom. And feed them every week, he says.
"Speaking of feeding," my husband says, "do you think there's a chance you could listen to some cooking shows?"
"Shhh," I respond.
I discovered this show by mistake, turning on the radio expecting music and groaning because here was this guy talking about root balls and root pruning, and what did I care? But then he started talking about brown patches on the lawn and what to do about them, and aphids and how to get rid of them, and I thought, "Hey, my lawn has brown patches. And I have aphids on my delphinium, too."
At least that's what Katherine, my neighbor, said. So I listened. I've been listening ever since.
Last week I told my father about the show and he said, " 'The New England Gardener'? He's great. I never miss him, 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. every Saturday. I listen while I'm working on the lawn.' "
"He starts at 6, not 7?" I asked. "You mean I've been missing a whole hour every week?" I'm going to have to start getting up earlier.
I used to be hooked on just one show, "Car Talk," with the Tappet brothers, Click and Clack, Saturday at 11 a.m. on 90.9 and I thought this was bad, having to be in the car for that hour because that's where you have to be when you're listening, driving, somewhere far, because you don't want to get where you're going and miss anything, they're that good. Then, a few months ago, I discovered "Sunday Morning Showtunes," which is on from 8-10 a.m on 99.1. I can't miss that now, can I? Then came Parent and his show, which I thought was three hours but is actually four.
Stuart Thompson, who's with Whit's Media, the company that represents Parent, informs me that it's really eight hours, the gardening show, because Parent broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday. "Sunday? He has a show on Sunday?"
"That's right. He broadcasts live on Sunday morning, too." Same time , from 6-10 a.m., on a number of local stations, Thompson says. "Paul Parent is so popular I try not to let my neighbors know I know him because everyone wants me to ask him something. You should see the lines of people with their dead plants waiting to talk to him when he's at a garden center."
Hmmm . . . This is a problem. What's it going to be? Garden talk or "Happy Talk" on Sunday mornings? Paul Parent discussing roses ("You're never supposed to water them at night," he says), or Ethel Merman belting out "Everything's Coming Up Roses"? My husband is hoping for a cooking show someday. But the truth is, that's one radio program I know I would not get addicted to.
