Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Natural gardens?


"There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises."

"It sounds very well to garden a "natural way." You may see the natural way in any desert, any swamp, any leech-filled laurel hell. Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners."

From, "The Earthman"

Henry Mitchell (1924-1993) wrote a gardening column for the Washington Post for 25 years. Wonderfully opinionated and wise, his weekly essays were later complied in several entertaining books. 

Speaking of natural defiance, consider the plant science and engineering that went into creating these amazing red tulips we take for granted now.

The tulip was originally just a little wildflower from  Central Asia. The Turks started cultivating the tulip around 1000 AD and the flower was introduced in Western Europe around the year 1600. 

The normally staid Dutch went promptly nuts. "Tulip mania" became one of the most famous asset bubbles and market crashes of all time.


 Nothing new in the weather department here, just another cold and stormy day.

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