While doing some reading in the history of garden design—ornamental gardens that is, the squirrels, raccoons, and now armadillos make vegetable gardening far too frustrating for me—I read the following in Lorraine Harrison’s How to Read Gardens, “most gardens of any age are like a palimpsest: successive generations have changed adapted and influenced the soft …
more than six things, much more than my garden
I've trained myself recently to default to six items to write about in After Eden through participation in the Six on Saturday group. But, even though I am writing this on a Saturday, I am not limiting myself to six topics--and I am certainly not writing about my garden. What follows is a photographic cornucopia …
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Wordless Wednesday, 20 May 2020
“lyk a bisy bee”
For well over a decade I have been fascinated with taking photos of bees on blooms. It all started while teaching summers for British Studies at Oxford, I think. The first challenge at catching bees on flowers that I remember took place in 2006 in University Parks while taking photos of giant sea holly (Eryngium …
six on Saturday, 6 April 2019
I did not think that I'd have another six interesting observations to pass along for a third week in row, but I found that I do. Before I give my six for today, though, I want to pass along a provocative coincidence. At this past week's Master Gardener meeting, a friend showed me two camellias …
wildflowers, wild weather
I had been writing the next post for After Eden in my head for days—all while working at the lake, mulching leaves, cutting back energetic and wayward ivy, burning fallen debris, and just generally tidying things up. Then I realized that the next post was not in my head but at my feet. Various …
garden writers and garden books
Over a year ago, I mentioned an intent to write a post about a few of my favorite books on gardens (bloom and seed, 30 December 2018); however, I went on to a very different topic after briefly mentioning three works: Lorraine Harrison’s, How to Read Gardens: A Crash Course in Garden Appreciation, A Short …
vestibule gardens
In my initial posts, I characterized After Eden as an investigation of gardens as places of repose in an otherwise chaotic world, as places of beauty reflective of the age they were created in, as cultivated, enclosed places that protect us briefly from the unruliness without. Or, as I wrote at the conclusion of the …
live oaks and leopard plants in Savannah’s squares
This post has been a difficult one to write. That fact that it has taken me six months to write it should be a clear indication of that. I visited Savannah, Georgia, the end of June intending a post on the squares in the historic district, providing a little background context on the Oglethorpe plan, …
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hearts-a-bustin
After Eden, Cain killed Abel. That sentence has been going through my mind since the murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. More accurately, that sentence has been lurking in my mind, shadowing my mood since 27 October. Initially I thought those five words might be the beginning of a poem, but the …