I reflect from time to time on the Rashomon story.  It helps calm things down during arguments.  We all differ in what we see, as well as remember.  However, there are similar stories that reveal as much.

In “Meteor”, Karel Capek’s imaginative, early 20th century novella, a downed and severely injured pilot is taken to a hospital, but his identity, face and voice are unrevealed.  As he lies in bed, several… Continue reading

It was long in coming, this interest in the genus Hydrangea. I must admit I was never really infatuated with hydrangeas. Even as a teenage gardener new to the field, I thought they seemed old-fashioned, heavy, and sat like a bunch of thick sticks in winter. These preconceived notions probably grew out of my experience with the only two species that I’d seen… Continue reading

Recently, we completed a physical inventory of all the plants in the garden, the first in several years.  Many exciting, newly collected plants were noted.  Previously, our staff had accumulated data on accessions and placed the information in a long and complicated document with numerous separate fields, some of which were incomplete. Like the research and display garden for which it was named, it was grand, cumbersome and a bit… Continue reading

Green has always been my preferred color.  (Orange runs a close second, but that’s another story.)  I’ve often wondered why green clothing is hardly ever worn.  Military association?  I think this would be positive, not negative, but perhaps it is a taboo of sorts.  Beau Brummel probably ruined green at some point, drawing associations with grocers or Irishmen.  We remain cursed—and strangled—by his followers’ prejudices.  Augusta hasn’t helped much either. … Continue reading

A recurrent image from trips to the Middle East is the caravan.  I saw two, in Tunis and Sudan, scruffy versions of movie ones.  Noisy and smelly, they resembled nightmares.  Modern trucks have replaced them in volume, but only where the original routes were charted centuries ago.  Some trucks haul several containers in a bizarre conga line, like those crossing the Australian deserts.  Faster versions, then, of the old caravans.

However… Continue reading

Company towns are strange holdovers from the middle ages. In my mom’s hometown of Ware Shoals, the bank, church, clothing store, housing and, of course, work—all were owned by the textile mill. Money didn’t matter—whatever the company paid out, it got back in profits and rents. Step out of line and you better move along. However, no vagrants welcome, no strangers looking for a job… Continue reading

Recently, on a lovely Saturday, I drove up to New York City to see the site where my grandfather, Jacob, worked in a nursery in Queens. He had just moved from Cincinnati, where he’d finished an 1890s era, “live-in” apprenticeship in his early teens. Then he spent a few years in rural western Long Island, outside the town of Flushing, known for its many German immigrants and nurseries, as well… Continue reading