Plant therapy for New Yorkers
My thanks to Apartment Therapy, an urban-living design blog in New York City, for their nice words about my ice-storm photos. When editor Matthew Noiseux contacted me to ask permission to repost one of them, and I visited his site to see what it was about, I was pretty confused. Why would a city-dweller’s apartment-design blog want to cover ice-damaged flowers in Austin?
Matt explained,
Once per week we put up a small posting on plants/flowers—something that relates to the city in some way. Most busy city people do not find the time to “smell the roses,” and we try to at least remind people every once in a while.
The pictures of flowers and tree limbs encased in ice that have been popping up on the internet are truly captivating. At first glance I, and I imagine many readers, would think only that they are beautiful. But to a gardener, someone who has raised the plants and must rehabilitate them, it must be very sad. I also imagine that, just like the citrus in California, the effects will be felt in urban areas like New York in one way or another.
It is an interesting idea—along the lines of chaos theory—that what happens in my garden, and other gardens in an affected region, can touch the lives of people far distant. We already know that it goes the other way, don’t we? Design and fashion ideas in New York trickle down (ever so slowly) to Austin. Is Matt’s reverse theory possible? Can the effects of an ice storm across the South trickle up and impact the lives of New Yorkers? Or suburbanites in Albany, as far as that goes?
In other words, does gardening matter?
I know that it matters to me. The gals at Garden Rant think so too (see their manifesto). What I’m interested in is how it matters to someone who lives in a 50th-floor apartment thousands of miles away. Is ice on a flower just a pretty picture to someone who doesn’t garden? Or does it have deeper resonance?
Anyway, welcome, New Yorkers, to my garden.
I was tickled pick to get a mention in a city blog. What a good idea Matthew has!
Yes, I appreciated it too. And I discovered several other nice ice pictures through his links. —Pam
Your photos apparently are appreciated by ‘city people’ as much as they are by your friends in Austin… Congratulations, Pam!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I think it is very cool too that someone found your pictures captivating enough to want to share them with many more people. Way to go! I sure liked them.
And praise to Matthew for having the decency and good manners to ask first.
Thanks, Christopher (and Annie). Yes, I too was impressed by Matt’s professionalism in securing permission before reposting my photo. —Pam
Hi Pam,
I don’t know if June told you or not…but I show your website to just about everyone I know here in Washington. When I peek in periodically, it just brightens my day – as if I were just delivered a beautiful arrangment at the office! Your memories of Grandma made me cry. Isn’t it wonderful how we can both picture her bent over her garden in her bonnet? I can remember traipsing out to the vegetable garden and eating cherry tomatoes right out of the dirt. I also remember being shoo’d off of the huge honeysuckle bush (next to the mimosa tree). My most vivid memory of her flowers were her purple iris’s. I thought she was the only one that grew such beautiful flowers. It wasn’t until later that I realized that iris’s are so hearty and could probably grow anywhere. (And just keep coming back) What’s funny is… we bought the house that we live in now..here in Kennewick, WA …because I fell in love with the front bed with purple iris’s greeting me by the front porch. (Made me feel like – “I’m home.”)
Anyway…All this to say…I love your site…and thank you so much for the pictures of two of the my most cherished people – Grandma and Aunt June. Sherri