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October 28, 2013

'A Gardener Is an Artist'


Reading a fabulous nonfiction/popular history For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose.  Fascinating stuff.  And this passage, wow!

Butchart Gardens (via)
Although science was very much at the core of Fortune’s work, he was at heart a gardener, and a gardener is an artist: His canvas is land; his medium, plants.  A gardenre works in a three-dimensional world, taking into account the relative heights of trees and depths of borders, the slope of a hillside, and the views to be borrowed or enhanced.  But he works in a fourth dimension as well: time.  A gardner plans for seasons: which trees will bloom in spring (forsythia, magnolia, cherry, lilac, and apple) and which will reach their peak of color in autumn (acer, euonymus, and elder).  A gardner’s art also spans years ~ in determining which trees mature quickly and grow tall easily, such as birch, ash, and the softwood evergreens such as cedqar, fir, and pine, and which grow slowly and with some effort to leave a lasting legacy, such as oak, beech,a nd maple, which stand for generations.  Fortune was well aware that to be a great gardener demanded great patience.” ~ Sarah Rose, For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History