Tag Archive "garden"

Pause for the garden report

One of my all time favorite books is Candide, in which the hero turns his back on the horrors of the world and instead cultivates his garden.  The book seems fresh as a daisy even today.  The symbolic story is less a rejection of activism than a rejection of pie-in-the-sky optimism and an embrace of doing it yourself. Candide would appreciate Stella’s garden–shaggy and overgrown but still putting out buds and shoots.  I have a couple more photos at flickr.

Labor of the garden

Cosmos (orange) and Hyacinth Bean vines in a wild tangle in Stella’s garden. There’s one giant sunflower in there too which will bloom sometime soon. Earlier this summer Stella became a gardener. She planted and fertilized, worried and weeded. She tried this and that and some things worked and some (the strawberries which the squirrels keep eating) didn’t. Like all gardeners, Stella planted with an eye towards pleasing more than just herself. Although she was always the number one audience for her garden, Steve and I and our neighbors all enjoy what she’s done. As with many things in life, ... More » »