This winter has been hard on the garden, separating the sometimes winter vegetables from the dependables. I sure am glad we have supermarkets with lots of luke-fresh vegetables from California. I would be getting tired of chickweed by now.
Last summer's corn looks defeated - bedraggled and bent over at the knees. Skeltonized by the wind and cold, the edible chrysanthemum plants are falling over in slow motion. Our big hole aka Jumping Bear Trap turned into a well, filled with murky brown water.
The garden looks like a disaster, except for the Kale which is resplendent, cloaked in swirls of delicious blue-green and purple. I can't help myself, I love the garden even in decline. As a child I first fell in love with nature. Not the picture-perfect nature of the mountains or the seasides, but nature struggling in the sidewalk cracks or taking over vacant lots.
On my first visit to Buchart Gardens I was struck by how perverse it is, that we obsess so much over flowers-at-the peak-of-perfection. I saw masses plantings of blue lobelia, red petunias and orange marigolds perfectly spaced, well manicured and packed with blossoms. The overall effect was both stunning and startling. When you consider that flowers house the sex organs of plants and the primary purpose of their beauty is to entice sex partners - you might conclude, as I did that day in Buchart Gardens, that large masses of perfect flowers are a lot like Playboy Clubs.
Imagine dozens of tall Bambi-figured blonds, next to scores of petite pony-tailed Asian models, and for gender equity, two hundred over-sized African-American basket players. If you dressed them in suggestive little outfits, and lined them carefully in rows - you could make a Buchart Gardens out of people instead of flowers.
At Buchart Gardens all of the plants are kept at their peak. The kids are hidden out of site, in the nursery. The old, the misshapen, the misfits are all scrupulously culled and carted away to the compost pile. Because all of the imperfections are airbrushed out of the picture, Buchart Gardens lacks character. It feels like someone's twisted fantasy - nice for an afternoon of titillation, but not a garden to live or work in.
Sure the Grange Garden looks like a mess. Take a closer look and see tiny carpets of fine-foliaged grass with the electric chartreuse-colored leaves. Check out the worm tunnels that pockmark the garden beds. See the spiders lurking in the weeds and the Senecio (weed) already blooming. The outer leaves of the leeks look tattered, but they will clean up nicely for dinner. Welcome to the winter garden.
Last summer's corn looks defeated - bedraggled and bent over at the knees. Skeltonized by the wind and cold, the edible chrysanthemum plants are falling over in slow motion. Our big hole aka Jumping Bear Trap turned into a well, filled with murky brown water.
The garden looks like a disaster, except for the Kale which is resplendent, cloaked in swirls of delicious blue-green and purple. I can't help myself, I love the garden even in decline. As a child I first fell in love with nature. Not the picture-perfect nature of the mountains or the seasides, but nature struggling in the sidewalk cracks or taking over vacant lots.
On my first visit to Buchart Gardens I was struck by how perverse it is, that we obsess so much over flowers-at-the peak-of-perfection. I saw masses plantings of blue lobelia, red petunias and orange marigolds perfectly spaced, well manicured and packed with blossoms. The overall effect was both stunning and startling. When you consider that flowers house the sex organs of plants and the primary purpose of their beauty is to entice sex partners - you might conclude, as I did that day in Buchart Gardens, that large masses of perfect flowers are a lot like Playboy Clubs.
Imagine dozens of tall Bambi-figured blonds, next to scores of petite pony-tailed Asian models, and for gender equity, two hundred over-sized African-American basket players. If you dressed them in suggestive little outfits, and lined them carefully in rows - you could make a Buchart Gardens out of people instead of flowers.
At Buchart Gardens all of the plants are kept at their peak. The kids are hidden out of site, in the nursery. The old, the misshapen, the misfits are all scrupulously culled and carted away to the compost pile. Because all of the imperfections are airbrushed out of the picture, Buchart Gardens lacks character. It feels like someone's twisted fantasy - nice for an afternoon of titillation, but not a garden to live or work in.
Sure the Grange Garden looks like a mess. Take a closer look and see tiny carpets of fine-foliaged grass with the electric chartreuse-colored leaves. Check out the worm tunnels that pockmark the garden beds. See the spiders lurking in the weeds and the Senecio (weed) already blooming. The outer leaves of the leeks look tattered, but they will clean up nicely for dinner. Welcome to the winter garden.
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