Yet even as multibillion-dollar deals were being put together, or unraveling, Lowenfels found time to write his local gardening column. Every single week. Without fail.

"Garden writing has become my religion," he said.

He's been writing his column for the Daily News for going on 30 years now.

"I've written columns the day my father died, the day my mother died. I've written columns under the threat of liver cancer -- all sorts of weird things. No way I'm going to miss that column. I don't care if I'm on my deathbed.

"If you're religious, you're religious."

This makes him the longest-running garden writer in America.

"I can think of maybe three people in the industry who've been running that long, but not as a column and not continuous," said Robert LeGasse, executive director of Garden Writers Association, a group of nearly 2,000 members founded in 1948. "And never having missed a column in 30 years? I don't know anybody who can make that claim."

Fewer than 20 people in the group's 57-year history have made its Hall of Fame, and Lowenfels is one of them. And for many reasons.

"He's one of the most well-respected, well-liked garden writers in the world," said Tom Alexander, publisher of Growing Edge magazine, published in Corvallis, Ore.

Through the years, Lowenfels has given his readers chemistry and soil science lessons. He introduced them to the wonders of ligularia and explained why poinsettias aren't worth the free pots they come in. He got them pronouncing "fuchsia" correctly. (The guy's name was Fuchs, and he was German, so it's "fook-sia," not "fewsha," for crying out loud.) He confessed his love of lawn mowing, always on the diagonal -- and once, when his wife was away, herringbone.

To think he wouldn't be here telling readers anything at all if he hadn't come so close to dying.