Dandelion: Grow Anywhere
A walk down 125th Street in Harlem, New York City, on a cold spring afternoon. Cement, blacktop, cars. Bare branches. Not much green. Nothing in bloom. But a closer look revealed a spark of color. This was my first sighting for the year of my favorite botanical sight: the yellow petals of a dandelion. One of the countless reasons I love dandelions is that they can make themselves at home anywhere. Anywhere on Earth, it seems. They grow on every continent except Antarctica (and I’m sure they’ll be blooming there before long.) They grow on mountaintops, in sand dunes, along...
Read MoreTulips: Old Masters
This is the most bustling, enticing, delicious farmer’s market I’ve ever been to. Local spring greens, potatoes, herbs, leeks. Muffins, honey, goat cheese, maple syrup. And flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers. The famous Greenmarket in Union Square. Funny, I had to go to New York City to find flowers blooming. It was a refined form of torture for me to have to walk past dozens of stalls selling plants of every description, and not be able to buy any. But the daffodils and the pansies wouldn’t survive being stuffed in a backpack and carted around the city. And it’s not...
Read MoreThistle: No More Waiting
Last December, I was at the Beacon train station, and I noticed a really magnificent specimen of a thistle. It was growing, still green in December, thriving among the gravel so carefully placed to keep weeds down (see Thistle: Waiting for the Train). Well, today I happened to be at the Beacon train station again, waiting for the New York City train, and there was my prickly friend. The thistle has weathered the winter, better than I did–no colds, flu or dry skin–and is in fine shape. No more just a flat basal rosette of leaves–now it’s time to spring into action....
Read MoreFabric Flowers
Okay, this is sort of cheating for a blog that’s supposed to be about nature, but I’m an absolute sucker for quilts. Real old-time, traditional quilts like these ones, I mean, made from honest-to-god scraps. I once met an elderly quilter, who wanted to bang her head against the wall at the very idea of buying brand new fabric and then cutting it up into little tiny pieces and sewing it all back together again…Of course, I do it myself, but it does seem absurd when you think about it. Anyway, the Quilt Bug in Esperance, New York, is a great little shop with gorgeous fabric,...
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