September 22, 2016 – I snagged a “Cinderella” pumpkin at my favorite garden spot!

It is squatty and ribbed and orangey and looks just like it fell out of the story book Cinderella, sans the horses.  It could possibly be a Rouge Vif D’etampes, but I am not sure.  I picked it up at Horn’s Home and Garden, in Forest City, NC – I think the area’s most friendly store! “Good people” as they say here in the Carolinas. 

When I arrived in 1985, I found my way to Horn’s Home & Garden.  Back then it was Sevil and Nell Horn who were the entrepreneurs.  I visited often as I had a new house which needed perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees.  Nell was a great herbalist and I would come to her for advice as well as just to have a good “chat up” when I was homesick. Nell even showed me how to tie a pretty bow for an arrangement.  Needless to say, I have to do about a dozen before I get warmed up and I revert to just going to Horn’s to get my bows as they are made by the experts.  Trust me; if you want a bow – that is where you go!

Nell had a great phrase she used on me when I spotted something I wanted and was thinking about coming back to buy it.  “You best get it before it gets gone!”   That is now my line when I am shopping with friends and see a bargain; it is just about guaranteed to prompt them into action.

Nell had another saying as well.  Back in 1985 people paid by cash or check and I hesitated one day not having enough cash. I asked, “Will you take a check?”  Nell answered, “We know all the good checks and all the bad husbands.” She said it with a twinkle in her eye and a great laugh.  I knew she was teasing me. 

I still miss her – she passed away in 2010.  On a hot August day I was at the church ½ hour before the funeral service and I still ended up in the balcony.  Not a seat was left by the time the service started.  The preacher gave a resounding and glowing eulogy.  It was perfection right down to the preacher reminding us of Nell’s time-tested sage advice, “You need a bit of purple in your arrangement to make it “POP”.  Soon, I will write about the color purple in the garden; what I learned from Nell Horn.  

Then a few years later, Sevil passed away in 2015.  Right up until the end he loved to come to the store and see his customers.  I picked up a phrase I use all the time from him.  “How about that.” 

After the funeral, the Horn Family sent me a copy of an essay I wrote about Sevil Horn years ago for a college English class they had found when they went through their parents’ papers preparing for the funeral. I was delighted when they offered to return a copy to me and I have re-printed it at the end of this Blog.

Not much has changed at Horn’s Home & Garden except Roger and his wife, Harriett, are there now along with Andrew and Charlotte.  They have made improvements, but the charm and friendliness is still there, and it will continue being my go-to place for my all gardening needs.

However, they have added internet sales for the beautiful wreaths they make. They are simply gorgeous! 

Visit it at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HornsHandmade? 

Interview with Sevil Horn, August 3, 1988

          

            Even before Sevil was old enough to attend elementary school, he was working behind the counter at Horn’s Cash Store.  “We had a glass candy counter that was twelve feet long and filled with penny candy.  It was near the front window and used to pull them in.  I was so small I had to stand on a wooden tobacco box to even reach the counter.”  Back then Silver Bells [Hersey’s chocolate kisses] were six for a penny.  “You could get a big old bag full of candy for ten cents.  In those days if you had ten cents to spend on candy, you were considered wealthy.  Even now I have customers who say to me, "Have you got any Silver Bells?’”  Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Sevil Horn, owner of Horn’s Home and Garden, is the third generation in the retail store business.  Sevil’s Granddad Horn started Horn’s Cash Store, a general store, on the Main Street of Forest City, near Smith’s Drugs in 1898.

            “I was a real hacker when I was about ten years old.”  Sevil’s smile lined face is animated as he reflects on his first retail venture.  “There was Trade Day every Monday behind the Main Street of Forest City in the parking lot behind Smith’s Drugs.  There I sold homemade lemonade.  I got a block of ice, a number three galvanized wash tub, and an aluminum dipper.  We had big old heavy glasses that were ten ounces and had deep grooves in them.  The recipe was three dozen lemons, five pounds of sugar, and water.  I used to sell two glasses for a nickel.  I had a second number three galvanized wash tub where I would rinse the glasses and use them over and over again.”  He paused to smile and chuckle.  “You couldn’t do that nowadays!”  I used to call out to everyone passing by:  "Ice Cold Lemonade, Made in the Shade, Stirred with a Spade, Best Old Lemonade that EVER was Made!”

            Sevil worked at the store as he grew up.  He saved his money, put himself through college, and after college ran the Horn’s Read-to-Wear Store.  Between those early days of retail and now, he has run the gamut of many different livelihoods, including cattle trading and dealing in machinery salvage.  He has dealt in rental properties for many years and also was a farmer for a short time.  Around 1968 or 1970 Sevil and his wife, Nell, retired and started Horn’s Home and Garden on Trade Street in Forest City.  Sevil started the business at a time when people were just becoming interested in fixing up their yards, home landscaping, flower gardens, and backyard vegetable gardens.  “The business has been successful because the timing was right,” Sevil said with a proud laugh.  Sevil continues in the retail business because he says he likes dealing with people and likes people in general.

            During the interview, Sevil’s calloused hands cut the end of a carton into an angle to create a display case for newly acquired landscaping fabric.  He propped the stock in the corner and greeted a customer, exchanging newsy gossip with his familiar saying, “How about that!” which is both a wonder of surprise and a question.  People come to him for his advice on things such as what to use to control insects or how to get black spot under control on their roses.  He is fair and honest-looking, and his personable-ness comes through in his old fashioned soft sell.  He believes in the old adage that you can’t sell somebody something they don’t want.  He is a retailing breed that is almost extinct.

            When I step into his current retail establishment, Horn’s Home and Garden, I step over the threshold back into time.  Worn wooden floors and a decorative old tin ceiling welcomes me.  At first glance I notice the hodgepodge, the stacks of things here, and the shelves crowded with lawn care products there, empty boxes awaiting to be filled with purchases, baskets hanging from the ceiling, merchandise piled, leaned, and wiggled in here and there, all cozily awaiting to be purchased. After a time, I notice there really is rhyme and reason about the place and a semblance of order in the wooden seed bins, metal shelves of insecticides, and rows of ribbons.  The establishment has such an essence of charm, sage honest advice, friendly gossip, and earthiness that it is in direct contrast to the modern facilities of his competitors who have products arranged on cold stainless steel shelves and glistening linoleum floors under glaring fluorescent lights.

            When I asked him what the secret of successful retailing was, he quickly answered without hesitation, “As my Daddy used to say, ‘Anything bought right is half sold.’  The price is it.  You have to cut out the middleman, watch your overhead, and cater to the demands of your customers.”  Sevil is a born salesman.

September 14, 2016 - The Good the Bad and the Curious

The last day or so we have had country observations of the Good, the Bad and the Curious.  There are simply daily surprises everywhere.

          First the curious:  Coming in from shopping today I notice some critter has been in my floating lettuce. [Water lettuce, Pistia stratiotes, Zone 10].  What is curious about it is I cut a picture of an elegant patio pot that had nothing in it except floating water lettuce. The photo didn’t even have a caption; I think it was a photo selling patio furniture.  But those frilly green floaters captured my attention.  It wasn’t until several years later when I was visiting a water pond store that I spotted them “live” for the first time and I made a mental note to myself. “Self, someday I am going to have me some of those.”

          The week of the Fourth of July I always visit Horn’s Home & Garden here in Forest City to see if I can’t snag something to give the patio a little “refresh or some oomph”.  I was still “hunting” something to fill one of my big patio planters that remained empty.  I hadn’t realized they had water plants this year and I knew exactly what I wanted when I saw the floating lettuce.

          I bought a clear plastic tray, the type you put under potted plants.  My mind guessed at the diameter.  Roger Horn helped me fish out 5 water lettuce and I drove home immediately.  I cultivated the unplanted topsoil in my empty patio pot – took a few handfuls of soil out and slipped the clear plastic tray into the pot.  It fit flush with the edge and was a perfect fit – "YES".  I added water and the floating lettuces looked right at home.  I positioned it at the base of the back steps so that I could view it up close and personal coming and go every day.

          Yet . . . in a few weeks, the leaves started to turn yellow.  It simply couldn’t take that much sun so I “walked” the heavy pot over to the other end of the sidewalk into more shade, gave it a splash of miracle grown and it is happy now.

          Except, when I came in today I noticed one of my water lettuce, I like to call them my floating lettuce was hanging over the edge about 4 inches clinging to the side of the pot.  The long feather root giving it enough ballast that it stayed that way until I plopped it back in the water.  Curious, which critter has been playing “patty fingers” in my floating water lettuce pot?

          Additionally, just a few days ago I had pulled my “pack-rat” notebooks out and was flipping through and stopped at that old torn out clipping from years past with the floating water lettuce.  Curious isn’t it, years later a saved gardening idea comes to fruition finally.

          Next the good: I was taking some prunings to the compost pile and cut through what used to be my original vegetable garden.  I had to abandon it due to the shade encroaching on it.  Along the outside edge had been herbs, flowers and perennials that I had lifted years ago.

          I stopped dead in my tracks – what a surprise to see three of the most beautiful “hurricane lilies” – red spider lily, “Lycoris radiata”.   I had planted some years ago and never saw any sign of them – no leaves, no nothing.  

Now, suddenly I get this lovely surprise.  And, we haven’t had a drop of rain in weeks.  They were simply gorgeous in a scruffy unkempt part of my garden.  I’ll mark them and leave them alone.

          And now for the last surprise, the bad:  Two nights ago we had shrimp.  I had to peel the raw shrimp and my good husband took the peelings to the compost pile at the back fence line.  This is the compost pile where I mix the kitchen vegetable peelings with the undiseased or non-weed clippings.  I let it melt down a year or two before use.  It is a 4 x 4 square of cattle fencing and is about half full.  A portion of it does get late afternoon sun.

          We both do this all the time, walk to the compost pile and toss something on it.     My husband reached to the center and as he was dumping the plate full of shrimp peelings – a large black snake reared up its head as the peelings were dumped on him.  The snake was rather sizeable my husband said with several loops, probably about 5 feet and his tail portion was hanging out the back of the compost bin.  The snakes tongue searched the air – flick, flick, flick.  My husband froze and they had what he called a “stare-down” contest.  The snake had a white belly.  My husband was waiting to see if he was going to come toward him.  But, luckily the snake turned and slowly slithered away.

          My husband came back into the house and said – “You got lucky, I meet our “friend” at the compost pile.”  He gave me the second by second recall of the whole incident ending with, “Good thing he decided to goes his way – because I know I couldn’t out run him.”

          We’ve seen this sleek black fella several times this year.  I was picking up the last of the downed limbs – not too far from the compost pile – and just as I was about to pick up a limb – a black snake rears its head up showing off its white belly.  I know I screamed “SNAKE” and vamoosed out of there.  [It amazes me how fast I can move sometimes.]

Then, one day I am sitting in the shade writing a letter and I spot a feral cat walking curiously in the grass and sit and watch, then move along and sit again.   Whatever was going on was getting closer to me.  I stood up and could see this shiny black snake moving rather quickly through the dark green wet grass – heading my direction – I went around the other direction away from it to safety.  

Earlier this spring we saw [we are certain the same snake] slither in and out of the retaining bricks of my raised bed garden closest to house hunting for lizards or lizard eggs – not sure.    

We call it “bad” yet others have told us:  “Black snakes are good to have around, they eat the mice.”

We think the only “good snakes” are those that stay in other neighbor’s yards.