SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 & SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3: The Arboretum grounds are open. However, the entrance and parking lot are closed. Please park on the street.
I had an epiphany driving into work that one of the silver linings of this terrible pandemic is the possible reworking of how many of us view nature. Nature, and public gardens, and parks. Things we may have took for granted, yet now crave, and are being denied access to. I remember back in the Great Recession of 2008 that Horticulture took a hit because it was considered a luxury industry. Which I must admit chafed a bit, both personally and financially.
Leaving the Garden
I wrote several years ago that the garden we leave at night is not the same garden that we return to in the morning. It is just as certain that the Arboretum I arrived at in September of 2014 is not the same Arboretum that I will be leaving at the end of February. Trees have been planted, and trees have been cut down. People have left our little community, and we feel a sense of loss. Some of our local wildlife has also left the premises, and the sense of loss is, sh...
I have had occasion to write elsewhere about the two gardening extremes, which I refer to as BF and SF. BF stands for brute force, and refers to a garden that achieves its goals by the application of much labor and many resources. SF stands for survival of the fittest, where the garden is established with varying degrees of design and intention, and then allowed to go its own way. Most of our gardens fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, but this past summer, I was lucky enough to vi...