December 30, 2011
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Deep Thoughts Places

My Year in Gardening: 2011

I wrote a reflections post for 2010, and thought it would be good to end this year in the same way, especially since it gives me the opportunity to revisit some experiences that I did not cover very thoroughly.

[This photo and at top of page] My garden in September 2011.

Year Start

I started the year with a new D.I.Y grow-light system, more seedlings than I could handle, and a sloping bowling alley of scrubby grass and weeds that I hoped to transform into a garden. As a testament to my stubbornness and determination, I somehow managed (with a lot of help from Davin) to pull it off amidst finishing the editing, photography, and design of my third book, traveling to Thailand, working on a potential TV show, and other deadlines. I was so excited about the space I was out there any chance I could get, often until it go so dark that I couldn’t see anymore. I love having this new garden. It’s the best thing about 2011 and I can’t wait to get back out there in the spring to see what comes of the bulbs and perennial plantings, work on refining the overall layout, and discover a new year of wonders and experiments.

Year End

These last few months of the year have been trying and spiritually exhausting. I’m burned out and feel like a shell of my former self. It is for the first time that I find myself really relishing the idea of a year’s end and starting from a renewed and fresh perspective in January. More than ever I hope to walk into the new year feeling revitalized and ready to take on some of the ideas and adventures I’d like to work on in 2012. As you read this post, we are either on our way to or have arrived in the desert, where we will be enjoying some much-needed respite from the cold.

Friends, I’m going to touch, see, and be in the desert soon!!!!!! There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world to express my enthusiasm.

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September 1, 2011
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Stuff

Leaping Off of the Fence

Update: The winner is Manju. Congrats!

Another post was intended for today, but in light of a recent (and disturbing) disparately located online thread that suggests that garden writers should stick to sunshine and roses and leave out the “negative” stuff, I have decided to switch gears and reintroduce a book I have discussed at length in the past, “My Garden (Book)” by Jamaica Kincaid.

Ms. Kincaid is a fierce writer, one of a handful whose words and courage I turn to when my footing has slipped and I need some examples of women who know how to speak their mind. My god, that woman speaks her mind with such power and force and nary a sign of apology. I need to know, and read about these women. Women who do not tow the line. The ones who are not happy rolling over, or painfully etching away at their character in order to serve the status quo. I want to tackle my fears in the best way that I can, with all the resolve I can forge, and walk into those scary places with them, behind them, beside them, wherever, as long as it is not chained in silence to a white picket fence by fear. Gardening is a part of human culture. We are fallible, messy, beautiful, miserable, and everything under the sun. It only stands to reason that the cultures we create carry all of us within them, for better and for worse. To say that one should stick to gardening is saying that one should write about everything and anything related to growing plants, because everything that is in us is in it.

That Jamaica Kincaid is also an avid gardener who can lovingly and tenderly walk that line between both sides of the spectrum and everything in between is a testament to her skill as a writer. She can express the obsessive horticultural longings and compulsions us plantaholics share, while also delving deep into the depths of gardening’s not-so-pretty side, especially as it relates to human history.

I recently came across a copy of her book “My Garden (Book)” and since I love it so much, decided to buy it to share as a giveaway to an interested reader. To be entered feel free to share some of your own favourite women writers (gardening or otherwise) or simply leave a comment expressing your interest to be entered. I’ll pick a name at random on Tuesday, Sept 6.

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July 26, 2011
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Places

A Few Film Photos Taken in the Alpine Garden at the Denver Botanic

The large inflorescence in the background of this photo belongs to Agave parryi, an agave that can be hardy to -18C (according to “High and Dry: Gardening with Cold-Hardy Dryland Plants” by Robert Nold), depending on the growing conditions. Recently, I have been learning about some of the hardier agaves and was pleased to see a few at the Denver Botanic Gardens that were not only over-wintered outdoors, but in bloom.


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April 20, 2011
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Places

Orchids!

I’m still suffering from extreme sleep deprivation and killer jet lag from hell, and have decided to roll out the Thailand trip coverage slowly with this Polaroid I took at the Mae Sa Orchid Farm just outside Chiang Mai. Thanks so much to Heather Champ who kindly gifted me with three packs of 600 film for the trip.

This was our first stop in Chiang Mai, visited directly after leaving the airport and on our way out into the countryside to have lunch and visit the Botanical Garden (which I will post about later). It was exciting to see so many orchids in one place and I was surprised by how enthusiastic I was to see more since we’d already been in Thailand for a while by this point and had seen our fair share. Orchids are everywhere in Thailand. Literally everywhere, including street plantings and highway underpasses.

Most of the orchids grown on the farm were vandas, which are extremely difficult to grow here in Toronto as they require a consistently humid environment. It was probably their extra specialness that contributed to my enthusiasm.

The farm presented each of us with a fresh orchid corsage on the way in, and I got another one when I flew Thai Airlines to Beijing. I even got one as a garnish when I ordered coconut water at in a cafe.

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September 15, 2010
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Daily Botanical Places

Pillow Cotton

I couldn’t resist sharing another image from the presentation I am working on and will be giving later this month.

This is Giant Milkweed (Gossypium). The only time I saw it on the trip was when we travelled to the north end of Barbados to visit the Animal Flower Cave. The cave was a must-do item for me. When I was growing up, my mother, who is from Barbados, spoke of it fondly. What she described was an ocean-side cave filled with blooming flower animals: sea anemones. Unfortunately, the anemone population has dwindled significantly over the years. While the cave and the surrounding landscape was fantastic, and one of the highlights of the Barbados leg of our trip, what I saw was nothing like the cave as it would have been in my mother’s day.

But I digress. When I hopped off of the last of a three bus journey, the very first plant I noticed was the Giant Milkweed. How could I miss it? It looked like an overgrown version of the milkweed that grows in dry landscapes here in Toronto. The landscape at the north end of the island, and on Barbados in general, is quite dry and flat. There are a lot of dry fields. For that reason, I didn’t see this plant in Dominica, an island that is almost entirely mountainous rainforest!

I did some research and discovered that Giant Milkweed is sometimes called “pillow cotton” because the giant pods are filled with a soft and silky fibre that was once used to fill pillows. How appropriate. You see, for a good month prior to our trip I worried endlessly about the availability of a decent pillow in Dominica and wondered aloud to anyone who would listen as to how I might pack my pillow in addition to all the books and camera gear I felt necessary. This is all because I read somewhere that there was a pillow shortage in Dominica due to a fire, and that it is hard to get stuff there period, regardless. Which is true.

I know this sounds very Princess and the Pea, but I assure you that I can sleep on rocks as long as I have a good pillow. I NEED my pillow. Of course, after all of that fuss, I forgot the pillow at home and then worried about it endlessly during our 4 days in Barbados. Where could I get a pillow? When would I get a pillow and would it take me over Liat’s minuscule carry on limit?

I should have harvested some “pillow cotton” from the Giant Milkweed and made my own while I had the chance.

Amazingly, later that night — our last night in Barbados, and well after I had resigned myself to “suck it up already”– I purchased the perfect pillow from a group of ladies (the Pillow Ladies), and at the fish market of all places!

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