For Groundhog

“Hey David.” A man with a cane walked slowly over towards me in our community garden, Maria Sola Green Space. “Did you get that article I sent you?”

“Which one?” I had to clarify to George, as he sent me articles in spurts, none for two weeks, then four on the same day.

“The ones from my email. It starts with groundhog. That’s what all my friends call me.”

“Yeah, I saw a few. I read parts of most of them.” I gave an honest response.

“In particular I wanted to discuss the New York Times article about the ‘native vs non-native’ plants debate.” As George said this, he raised his hands up into air quotes, his cane hanging from his wrist by its strap.

“Oh yes, I did read that one.”

At Maria Sola, he had planted and cared for beds with plants from Asian and neotropical zones, in addition to native beds.

He’d asked for my thoughts, but he jumped to give me his. “You know, there’s a whole sector of horticulture people who’d come in here and rip up our Japanese ferns and our hostas… now that’s just something I can’t get behind.” George shook his head vigorously and turned his palms up now, as if in disbelief.

I did my best to regurgitate what I’d read. “I mean it makes sense that there’s nothing inherently special about a plant being native or not, as long as it works in the existing environment.”

“So you agree with the author?”

I nodded my head.

Over the two years I’d known George, I’d come to expect these lecture-esque conversations.

“And I know I annoy you David, and I know you’re going to say I don’t because you’re a very polite man,” George continued, “but I just can’t get behind the idea that all non-native plants are somehow bad.” His palms faced up again.

This is one of many plant lessons that I remember. One that left a bigger impact was about two years ago to the day, in the fall of 2024.

“Hey David, when you have a minute I want to show you something.” George repeated this line countless times. He was always wanting to show you something.

I walked over and saw a group of purple flowers with a yellow center.

“These are New York asters. Native.”

“Wow, there are so many bees,” I said. At first I saw two, then three. As I stared for another minute I realized there were probably 20 of them right here on this group of New York asters. My eyes felt glued to the flowers and the bees.

“People don’t love asters, because all spring and summer they don’t look like much. They only flower in the fall. They’re very important for pollinators. Fall around here is when the bees have the hardest time finding enough pollen sources.”

I nodded. George continued.

“This is something a lot of people don’t understand. You want to plant flowers that bloom at different times of the year.”

We both stared down and watched the bees. He stood up straight, his cane still hanging from his wrist. The asters, it seemed, gave him the strength to stand.

“Pretty cool,” George said.

Since that day, asters have held a special fascination for me. I learned that they love full sun and thrive in crappy soil. Both George and our mutual friend Jason from Bronx Green-Up, who donated the plants for the new garden we started this year, recommended we plant them.

This September I was on a walk in Vermont. I looked out at a meadow and saw lots of yellow goldenrod. Among the yellow I saw batches of purple. My heart beat faster. I tiptoed towards them through the tall meadow plants as fast as I could, careful not to knock any over. I noticed the thin, straight petals. They were asters. I noticed more. Dozens more. I thought of George. Fall was here. Soon, our asters in the Bronx would be blooming too.

I smiled. I knew how hard each of these asters worked to survive. And they’d done so without any human help.

That night, my phone buzzed with a text message. It was from another gardener, Grant.

“I just got word that George has died of a heart attack. Medical examiner is still at his apartment.”

I froze at my phone screen. I sent several messages of disbelief.

“What about his pet reptiles?” I asked.

“I’m concerned about that too.”

I heard George in my head. He told me once that he could never go away because his pet reptiles had particular habits. “I don’t think you understand,” George began. “These are not like cats and dogs. Lizards are very particular about their light and temperature, and small changes really throw them off.”

“Well they’re cold-blooded, so that makes sense.”

George moved his head in between a nod and a shake. I thought of that interaction. I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t hear the man complain again. I went outside. I saw a few asters. I started crying for George.

That week, I got on an Amtrak train from Burlington down to the city.

On the train, the other questions entered my mind.

I had never worried about most of Maria Sola’s plants because I knew George would be watching them.

What about the neotropical bed? I could replay George’s routine giving a tour of it. “At Maria Sola, we’re also about education. Now, what are plants native to southern Mexico doing here in the Bronx?” He’d wait for a guess or a hint to continue. “It’s because of two things: climate change, and the urban heat island effect.” He’d pause again then continue. “If any stubborn bastard wants to tell you that climate change isn’t real, ask him why these are growing in New York City.”

I couldn’t name a single one of the plants in the neotropical bed. I definitely didn’t know how to take care of them. And who besides me, who had moved away from the neighborhood, knew that the Asian bed needed partial shade during the warm months, otherwise the ferns and hostas would fry, and that’s why we left the tent up next to the Asian bed all summer?

George tried to tell us all of this and more, and we didn’t listen. What was that plant he mentioned that was extinct in the wild? Where had he planted it? I had no clue.

For a minute, I was mad at George. He had no exit strategy. He drank a Mountain Dew and smoked cigars every time he was in the garden. He ate fried food all the time. He rarely left his apartment in winter.

I got to Maria Sola by the late afternoon and I swung the gates open. The kids who walked by after school entered, including a girl in 7th grade and her Dominican mother, who didn’t speak English.

“Where’s George?” the young girl asked. My stomach dropped. I had to rip the band-aid off.

“I have to tell you something sad.” I crouched down to her short height. I took a deep breath.

“George had a heart attack and passed away last weekend.”

She put her hand on her face, sat down on a bench, and started crying.

Her mom looked at me and asked me in Spanish what I’d just said. I told her. “You should’ve told me first,” she said. Now I felt bad about that.

I sat down next to the girl. “I know it’s really sad.” I didn’t try to make her feel better. “George always made this joke about you. He’d say, ‘We’ve gotta put her on the payroll. She’s more useful than most of the adults.’”

She let out a louder wail of tears. I started tearing up too.

For two years, I spent a lot of time with George. Did I consider him a friend? If I did, it was with some distance, because I also saw him as the grumpy gardener. And here I was with this little girl whose last name I didn’t know, crying together.

I thought of another line George repeated. “Plants, animals, and kids… they all love me. But not adults. I don’t get it.”

We celebrated George that weekend in the garden. His bandmates came and played blues music. George was always inviting me to some bar on Monday nights on the Upper West Side where he played. I didn’t want to go. I never went.

One of his bandmates told me, “Groundhog was always inviting us to the garden. None of us ever came until now.” I laughed my ass off. “Dude, it was the same for us.”

They made up lyrics, “I knew a man we called Groundhog,” they sang with a blues rhythm, “he loved to drink Mountain Dew.”

I stopped by the new garden on 132nd St, Semilla Pocket Park. I thought of George again, who’d helped me and a few others put almost every plant we had there in the ground.

I heard him in my head, words he’d said right on this spot in the spring.

“I know I sound like a broken record,” George began, “but they have to be babied the first year.”

We had successfully babied them. Almost every plant had survived. I had taken his advice and it had paid off.

I called J, the young man who’d watered at Semilla all summer.

“J, you around? I’m out back.”

Within minutes he’d arrived.

“You remember George?”

“Oh yeah. George. Walks with cane,” he replied in his Jamaican accent. “Helped us plant.”

“George had a heart attack and passed away.”

“George? Dead?”

“Yep.”

J nodded his head. “Sad.”

We stood in silence. Should we change the name to Groundhog Garden? I thought to myself.

J changed the topic. “Dave, you see the flowers?”

“Oh my god,” I gasped out loud. The asters were blooming. A few honeybees and bumblebees roamed around, looking for an opening.

Rest in peace, George Axiotakis, AKA Groundhog.