Stories About Gardening
My Purple Rain Trauma & Gardens Inspired by Classic Album Cover Art
Gardens and music connect us Riverbanks’ horticulture team planted flowers to match iconic album cover art. When Tom and I walked the gardens today, we laughed, talked about our favorite old music, and lingered longer because of this exhibit. He even taught me something; Andy Warhol took the famous zipper-bulging crotch photo for the Rolling…
Read MoreConnections Between Plants and People
A Story by Summer Intern Iris Moore Every person has their own story and plants are no different. As living things, I find plants to be very personal. If I get a plant from someone, I think of it as an extension of them and their relationship with me. Hearing stories from people has helped…
Read MoreThe Chimney Fire Christmas
Conjure up a roaring fire. Feel your muscles relaxing as they soak up heat from soul-penetrating warmth of a wood stove. That’s not what I felt, perched on top of a three-story house one freezing, under a midnight blue sky, Christmas 1975. Just a boy, barely a teen, I was actually tied to the…
Read MoreLessons from Grass Puppets & Youngsters
The stories we’ll tell….and a brief history of Indonesian shadow puppet theater called Wayang Kulit. . Geoff and I lead a troop of young adventurers down the sand road. We are family friends, unrelated adults, “fun uncles” hoping to inspire wonder in the three young siblings who trail behind. Not so long ago, we all sat…
Read MorePandemic Distraction — Wandering In the Nursery Fields on Sunday Morning
Standing barefoot in the field trying to click. The slick phone screen can’t feel my fingers through potting soil and worm parts.
Read MoreGhost in the Crinum Field —- A Massive Bulb Stimulates Weird Thoughts While the Garden Crew Works
I see things nobody else does. Snapshots, little fictional scenarios flash through my head. Does that happen to you? Today when we were digging the biggest of big bulbs, Crinum ‘Fiesta’, it happened. Leaning on shovels next to me, two nice fella’s who I thought would never have a black thought like the one I pushed…
Read MoreCountry-style Cut Flowers — What? You’ve Never Heard of Chicken Feet Flowers?
A cut flower stem that last for weeks without water.
Read More25 Years Ago Riverbanks Botanical Garden Opened — I Was Mad in the Photo!
Which mean 27 years ago, I left my adopted home of Seattle to move back to Columbia, South Carolina. It was culture shock to be sure! Columbia was still pretty much a small town with a lot of Bible Belt ways. An amazing group of people established a vision, political support to establish a new…
Read MoreStone Cold
I sat down at the bar at Hunter Gather alone. It’s warm and dark, the kind of place strangers talk. A few other farmers, craftsmen, tradesmen types were always there at 4 p.m. One time I was telling some guy a story. I’d explained how my farm is an hour out of town and that…
Read MoreSouthern Peat Bogs, Old Men and A New Farm Ethic
Sitting in a rocking chair, a tiny plate of deviled eggs in his football player lap, I guessed he was about 75. He was almost a stranger yet immediately familiar. He had my father’s brogue, my uncle’s nose, and this family’s skills of storytelling, “Did you know Daddy used to run a peat company down…
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