My six for this Saturday really date from 2 September and a visit to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in South Africa, which advertises itself as "the most beautiful garden in Africa," and it might well be. One of its signature plants is the Mandela Gold bird of paradise (Strelitiza reginae), as foreshadowed in the featured …
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 …
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 …
Continue reading "more than six things, much more than my garden"
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
Continue reading "live oaks and leopard plants in Savannah’s squares"
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