Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Unlike many garden or flower lovers, I can’t say I like gardening; I don’t. I do love gardens and the flowers that grow in them.

I don’t have the heart, stamina, or concentration for the nitty-gritty dedication and sweat of the true gardener.

Instead, I am a garden predator and opportunist—the curse of the photographer—and I love the images the garden produces and what it stands for.

I do plant and grow many of my flowers, but basically, I’m a flower parasite; I feast on the work and creativity of other people.

Gardens are mystical, accessible places of beauty, peace, inspiration, and reflection. I feed eagerly on other people’s hard, dirty, and often thankless work. And I respect what the garden is and stands for.

I loved being a reporter, but reporters do not have the time or will to create the beautiful gardens I now love to exploit in my photography. I just ordered a new book I am anxious to read and write about— The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing.

It’s coming sometime next week.

It’s time I took gardens more seriously in my life and photography. Laing’s new book will help.

Critics say Laing advocates the garden in her book as a powerful idea—a repository of natural beauty, a democratic ideal, and a source of writerly inspiration. My flowers have certainly inspired me.

Writing in the New York Times Book Review,  A.O. Scott cautions readers not to expect “a historical survey of gardening, much less a practical guide,” describing it as “an inquiry into the idea of the garden — its history and poetics, its relationship to sex, imagination, and power.”

I’m in.

Flowers for love.

Flowers for art.

Flowers for inspiration.

Flowers for sex.

The Head on the back porch has grown some hair.