The COVID Garden

How do I begin? In a year when COVID affected every workplace and when normal had been upended, the usual things we have taken for granted became exceptional. And it was a year when I, Cam MacPhee, landscape designer and gardener met with one group who had to contend with the affects of isolation and their solution. The result of limiting people’s movements created a need to develop the environment they had available to them.

The lockdown created a less than favourable spring for everyone in 2020. The residents of Kew Gardens found themselves isolated in their individual apartments, within the four-storey building that housed retirees. Many of the residents had been in the building for 15 or more years. It was a well-established, vibrant community. Until the winter and spring of 2020.

The management had determined that due to the advanced age of some of their residents, it would be prudent to keep everyone, who did not live in the building, out during the early spring. Finding ways to entertain the residents seemed futile as the recreation rooms had strict distancing requirements enacted by the management, in keeping with directives from the local health unit. As a result, each would spend an inordinate amount of time in their apartments, unable to mix and mingle, with the exception of passing one another in a hallway on the way to or from the mail box or to receive the groceries that were being delivered and possibly an excursion out to a medial appointment.

While Kew Garden residents were content to remain in their building during the early spring, avoiding the ice, snow and slush they had to contend with on annual basis, the month of May was a different matter. Budding leaves, turning green with the warmth of the sun promised some things wouldn't change. The early spring risers, Crocuses, had given way to rows and rows of Daffodils and Tulips in brilliant yellows, reds, and purples about to burst open, displaying vitality and life in an otherwise limited existence. And, the residents wanted to get outside. They needed what they had always turned to in May – their gardens. But their garden space directly behind the building and was too small to allow for social distancing, which would continue for some time to come.

Management made the decision to hire a local landscaper, that’s where I came into the picture. At Kew Gardens I met a feisty leader of the community garden, an 80-year-old, third generation gardener, Antonetta. Toni, as she told me to call her, had come to Canada as a 3-year-old with her parents, who brought with them some grape vines from Italy. She couldn’t have been more 5 feet tall, but her spirit was gigantic!

“We want to comply but don’t want our way of life to change. We’re too old for that,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “We need our garden! Do what you have to do but make the plan so that we can all be out in our gardens.” And with that admonishment, I was assigned the job of developing an expanded garden plan and to meet with her two days later with the proposed concept. This group had no time to waste!

On my first sight visit to the property which encompassed what would have easily been almost a city block of space, I marvelled at the spaciousness of property in the middle of the city. The building and parking lot sat on the south east edge of the property, parking lot to the west of it and there were streets to the south and east of the property. But it was the north side of the property that was the jewel. Acres of green space behind the building that met at a creek. This was going to be perfect, I thought as I walked the property, sketching along the way; creating a site plan for the building, parking lot, current garden, a treeline to the east terminated just past the building, a noise barrier no doubt, leaving the easterly and westerly exposure of the green space wide open.

“Toni, I would like to plan the garden to be situated at the north side of the property, closer to the creek,” I said passing her a photocopy of the sketch I had worked on for their committee. “It will be a bit of a walk compared to the current location but will allow for a pump in the creek to be used to fill the rain barrels so that watering can be done more easily. You will also be able to create an arbour along the south side for the grape vines. The trees along the north side of the garden will provide a natural shield for the colder winds.” I watched Toni’s face for any evidence of how she was taking this in. But her expression didn’t betray her thoughts.

“Cam, you’ve got it,” Toni said finally. “This makes perfect use of the space and you have no idea how difficult it has been to water the garden where it is located right now. The rest of the committee will have to see this plan and then I will follow up with you on their decision.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t often that a client bought into a plan that quickly. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure the walk to the back edge of the property wouldn’t have been an issue for this aging population, but perhaps I was underestimating them. Most clients first chose expediency. Toni had seen and understood, as a gardener, the logic. The only addition to the plan was raised beds.

“We’re not getting any younger, you know.” Toni said with a twinkle in her eye.”

“Yes, of course we can do that.” I said, making a notation before closing my sketch book. I was becoming quite intrigued by this little lady. She knew exactly what she wanted and needed and was prepared for what it would entail.

With permission from the committee and the building management to go ahead, over the following week everything had arrived on site. Raised beds, topsoil, manure, rain barrels, construction materials for a garden shed and finally, my crew and their machines. Time was of the essence with this client, I knew that and didn’t want to waste a moment of it. It had been made clear at the offset that this was going to have to be done quickly so that they could plant their gardens on the long weekend in May. Tight timeline, but manageable.

As work progressed over the next week, I had no doubt Toni was watching from somewhere. She wasn’t always seen, but the minute the crew would wind down to go on a break or for lunch, she and others would appear with the tastiest of treats for a working crew. They didn’t interact with anyone, just put food out under the shelter of a tent. By the end of the week, the project was complete, and my crew had been supplied with small mountains of home baking. Apparently, Toni was going to make sure this crew was well fed and would be inclined to keep working and on schedule. And her strategy worked.

One final item I had sourced, was a small pump for the maintenance crew of the building to fill the barrels once they ran low. It was on my last day on site, the crew, machinery, had all dispersed when I decided to go down to the creek and make sure the pump was going to be adequate for the purpose. The pump with its roll of hose had been installed on a cart that could be pulled down to the creek unrolling the hose along the way and would reverse the procedure on the way back. I found the slope to the creek wasn’t bad and I had been guaranteed that the pump would lift the water up to the barrels, but this was something I wanted to test for myself. I couldn’t let Toni down now, could I?

As I was making my way down to the creek, I looked up into the canopy the trees had created on both sides of the creek. Although they weren’t yet in full leaf, it was a quiet and peaceful. The sounds of the city seemed removed from this place. Lost for a moment in the tranquillity as I walked down the bank, I tripped and fell.

Scrambling back to my feet I looked down to see what I had tripped over. My foot had caught on the edge of a sleeping bag, left behind by a camper along the creek, possibly from the summer before from the look of the bag. The homeless population used a lot of the creek banks in the City during the summer. The sleeping bag was aged, muddy looking and was caught on an exposed tree root. I decided to try out the pump first and then get a garbage bag from the shed to collect the trash along the bank. It was one last thing I could do for seniors who had made us all so content as we worked for them.

Once the pump was running, I went back to the barrels to see if the pump was indeed working and was pleasantly surprised to see that yes, the claims were correct, water was filling the barrel. I gave it a few minutes while the barrel filled and then moved the hose to the adjacent one. On my way back down to the pump, I grabbed a garbage bag from the garden shed. Turning off the pump at the creek, I felt incredibly pleased with myself. It was a good week with no hiccups. Very unusual.

Opening the garbage bag, I once again approached the sleeping bag. As I started to tug it away from the tree root it was tangled on, I realised it wasn’t empty. Someone’s earthly possessions in there perhaps, I thought, when something rolled out of the bag. It appeared to be clothing mixed up with other things. Tentatively, I picked up an item that had fallen out of the bag first. It was a small black notebook with an elastic wrapped around it and a plasticized card slipped in between the elastic and the notebook cover. I eased it free. It was someone’s health card and was still legible. Jeffrey Thom.

“Well Jeffrey Thom, wherever you are, this is your lucky day. I’ve found your health card,” I said as I put it aside on the pump cart. “I doubt you’ll want the rest of this stuff back though,” I said as reached again for the old moldy looking sleeping bag. Once the bag was jostled loose more things fell out of it. Unfortunately, for me and my great week but more importantly for Mr. Thom, it became clear that this was not just someone’s abandoned possessions.

The discovery of the decomposing body in a sleeping bag was not an easy thing to shake off and it was still quite vivid in my memory six weeks later when I received a call from a Detective.

“Cam MacPhee,” the voice said.

“Yes,” I responded.

“It’s Detective Harvey. You found human remains along the creek bank a few weeks ago?”

“Difficult to forget. I don’t do that everyday in my line of work,” I said.

“Yes, I guess not – that was a dumb question. I was wondering if it was possible for you to attend the downtown office sometime?”

Hesitantly, I answered. “I guess so, is 2 pm today good for you?”

“That would be fine. Thank you, Ms. MacPhee.”

Just before 2 pm, I entered the police station and asked for Detective Harvey. As I waited for him in the lobby, I wondered what else he could possibly want from me and went back in my mind to the result of that first call. When Detective Harvey had arrived at Kew Gardens, I had handed him the little black book, with the health card back under the elastic band. He removed the band, looked at the card, thumbed through the book briefly and then asked me to lead him to the discovery.

“So, this is as you found it?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” I responded. “I didn’t realize there was a body in the bag and so I tried to dislodge it from the tree roots it was hung up on so that I could put it in the garbage bag. The book with the health card is the only other thing I touched.”

In short order the creek side had become a flurry of activity and while I didn’t stay around to watch, I had heard that the only identification the police had of the body was possibly from what I picked up. But that would have to be verified.

“Ms. MacPhee?” It was Detective Harvey.

“Yes, sir,” I responded, turning to see a familiar face.

“Please follow me,” he said and opened the door to the offices beyond the lobby.

Once we were seated in a small board room and he had asked the usual questions of whether I wanted a coffee, water, etc., he began.

“The forensics have been completed and we have identified the remains found along the creek bank. The health card you found did indeed belong to the man in the sleeping bag.

“Oh, that poor man, dying all alone down by the creek.”

“It’s not what you may think. He was killed, shot in the head. We think he may have been stuffed into the sleeping bag so he wouldn’t be found for a while as he was in it head-first. Mr. Thom had gone missing late last summer. The spring thaws and rising water and ice chunks in the creek probably dislodged the sleeping bag from its original place and carried it downstream until it got caught on the exposed roots of the tree, where you found it.”

“How awful,” I said thinking of how callously Mr. Thom had been dispatched.

“I know you’re probably wondering why I asked you to come in.”

“I was actually. I was trying to think if there was something, I had done that needed clarification.”

Detective Harvey smiled. “We have that affect on people,” he said. “But, no, it was nothing you had done. Mr. Thom was on a list of missing people, he suffered from mental health issues, we’ve had since last fall and there was a chance he had met with foul play. As a result, and because we had a possible suspect in mind, there was a reward of $20,000 on any information that would lead to the prosecution of a suspect. You found Mr. Thom with his identification, and the person who killed him assisted you by ensuring he was put back in his sleeping bag. Due to that fact, the body remained relatively intact except for decomposition. We were able to access dental records and retrieve and match the bullet to the gun it came from, which happened to have been seized from a suspect in our custody since last fall, following an armed robbery. As he wants to avoid a trial, especially with the additional charges on top of the armed robbery, he has decided to confess, claiming self-defence of course. So, the reward belongs to you,” he said producing a piece of paper. “I’ll just need your signature and the money is yours.”

My mind was awhirl. This was not at all what I had imagined on my way over to the police station.

“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulous to what he was telling me.

“Not at all,” he responded. “I could have told you about it on the phone, but that would not have been very fair. We like to meet with people to do this,” Detective Harvey said as he retrieved the completed form and extended the cheque to me. “Thank you, Ms. MacPhee” he said.

“Thank you, for not doing this over the phone,” I replied as I accepted the cheque from his outstretched hand. “I don’t think I would believe this over the phone. I’m having trouble believing it now.”

“Just know this, your actions allowed us to gather all the evidence we would need to identify both the victim and his assailant” Detective Harvey said as we walked back down the hall to the entrance, “Mr. Thom’s family is incredibly happy that his body has been found and wanted their appreciation expressed to you. I hope the rest of your summer landscaping jobs are less eventful than the first one though.”

As do I, I thought as I emerged from the police station into a brilliant July day. I will never forget Toni and her army of cooks or finding Jeffrey Thom all because of a garden.