The first time I visited California, it was January, I had just weathered a few massive snowstorms in D.C., and I was absolutely gobsmacked by all the fresh, green winter growth. You mean I don't have to live someplace where it's gray and frozen for ninety straight days? I moved out west a few months later.
The promise of new plants in the first few months of the year is one of the things that keep me here. And now that I have a yard of my very own, I get dorkily excited over all the plants popping up mere footsteps from my front door. My broccoli plants are thriving, I have poppies sprouting in one of my raised beds, the garlic is sending up bold new spears, and the thirty "Ice Wings" narcissus bulbs I planted this fall are beginning to poke up on either side of our (relatively) new tiled walkway.
Although I'm grumbling over the fact that my Chinodoxa gigantea alba has not yet made an appearance, that's a comparatively tiny complaint to have. I live someplace where I can plant something and watch it thrive in January or February. I feel really lucky.
And, after reading "The Gardens that Care Forgot" in today's Slate, I am humbled. Constance Casey interviews a few people who are rebuilding the flooded gardens of New Orleans. We should all have these gardeners' resilience, patience and optimism -- especially in the face of such adverse soil and water conditions. (To help restore New Orleans' gardens, go here.)
Between this and Cottage Living's surprisingly good -- and sustained -- coverage of post-Katrina renovation in New Orleans, you get an inkling of just how enormous the scope for rebuilding is. (CL's work includes: "A New Orleans Homecoming," which followed up the Sep 05 feature, "Creole Cottage," "Katrina Cottage," "Restoring Pride One Katrina Cottage at a Time" and "2007 New Orleans Idea Home.")
Although many write off lifestyle reporting as soft news, I think the best lifestyle reporting can provide an entree into understanding why the "bigger" issues end up mattering.
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