Posts Tagged ‘intergenerational gardening’
Lilies & Nocturnal Seduction. There’s a word for that and it’s a silly, fun, lovely word…..
As nights warm up, a flashlight reveals the fluttering cloud above dark lily fields. Millions of moths. The crinum lilies invite them. Daytime those moths hunker down in the straw mulch. But something more than shifting light calls them up from below. If you had a slow-motion camera and a fragrance detector, you could see…
Read MoreBreeders
I’m not a good breeder. That requires a forsite and planning that my mind doesn’t do well. So, my crinum selections are all happenstance and simply noticing something cool that’s happened in the field. But I am a good gardener and part of being a good gardener is remember connections between plants and people. Sometimes…
Read MoreFarm to Table? No, just dirt to mouth….
I had a beer with a scientist this week. She told me to buck up, get ready to face the future. GMO’s are nothing compared with what’s happening in Universities now. What’s coming down the pike, via the science of synthetic biology. It’s all amazing, scary, promising, complex and it’s going to be in your…
Read MoreI Dug It. And I’d Do It Again….
When I was little, all the adults in my life had tiny folding camping shovels. They kept them in the trunk, just in case they came across some cool plant on the side of the road. My Mother still has a her little shovel in the trunk. Stopping to dig may not be cool anymore. …
Read MoreCut, Prune, Rejuvinate
You know, when you prune a fig, the cut smells just like figs. I kept smelling it. Wondered why I’d never noted that and wondered why it surprised me. With my favorite hand saw, I got into cutting today. Just the biggest or problem trunks on…
Read MoreSnails, Nails, Puppy Dog Tails And A Blue Princess Dress
We had a bunch of children over New Year’s Day. These are outside loving young-uns. Who ever says youth is all tied to technology today, hasn’t met these dirt lovers. A second grade girl, one minute in a princes dress and the next minute tricking me into smell her hands — covered in putrid, rain…
Read MoreGreat Plants but No Ghost
Primarily, the goal of my recent road trip was to complete my interview with renowned garden designer Francis Parker. She’s taught me a lot in her garden and nursery since the 80s. A while back, her husband Milton read to me a history of their 1810 home on the point. Since we realized the original…
Read More“Wastage of soil…a menace to the national welfare”
My great grandfather lived in this house called Gravel Hill. He bought this failed plantation about 1890. It never really thrived, limping along as they took in boarders and sold off land till the ’70s. They grew cotton that pulls tons of minerals from the soil. After years of cotton growing, even if you fertilize…
Read More