I’m deeply absorbed in a new book by critic and writer Olivia Laing called “The Garden Against Time.” It is a fascinating look at gardening from a different perspective than I have ever heard or thought about. In just a few pages, she is already getting me to think differently about my garden bed and the flowers whose pictures I am taking.

I’m just 30 pages into the book and can’t wait to read more this weekend.

Laing’s work explores what gardens and flowers mean to us and how they might be surprisingly valuable as we move into a new world of Climate Change.

I’ll write about the book as I go through it when  I find something that should be shared by the flower and garden world and perhaps by others. This is not your grandma’s how-to garden book. It’s about what flowers and gardens might mean in the frightening new world.

 

Laing writes that even the most miniature garden intersects with history, as it must since every plant is a traveler in space and time.

“I wanted to explore both types of garden stories, to count the cost of building paradise, but also to peer into the past and see if I could find versions of Eden that weren’t founded on exclusion and exploitation, that might harbor ideas that could be vital in the difficult years ahead.  Both of these questions felt very urgent to me.  We were poised on the hinge of history, living in the era of mass extinction, the catastrophic endgame of humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The garden could be a refuge from that, a place of change, but it can and has also embodied the power structures that have driven this devastation.”

Wow, she got my head spinning. I’m eager to figure out where my little garden and I fit into this new worldwide drama.  I am getting flashes of understanding about just why I love to take these pictures. More to come.

 

 

This was another wildflower day before the rains expected this weekend. I’m still in love with these simple and honest flowers.

 

I went out with my camera and sat in the sun. Open and close your eyes at these pictures. I did; they spoke to me and whispered that life is good.

 

I’m signing off now; see you in the morning; thanks for reading.