Plants

…hurricane-willed,

with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape…

-Haki R. Madhubuti

Nineteen-thirty-eight certainly had an abundant amount of what everyone often refers to as “the good old days.” At the movies the Academy Award for Best Picture went to You Can’t Take it with You, starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, another comedy was Bringing Up Baby with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and of course the leopard named Baby. The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathborne drew audiences along with Angels with Dirty Faces starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart and period favorites, The Dead-End Kids. Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire danced together again in Carefree, and Astaire had his hand and footprints cast in cement at Grauman’s Theatre in Hollywood. (more…)

In the dogdays of summer as muslin curls on its own heat

And crickets cry in the black walnut tree

The winds lift up my life

And set it some distance from where it was…

            -Meena Alexander

End of July, beginning of August qualify as the “dog days of summer” from the eras of the ancient Greeks and Romans (July 24 – August 24), down through time to readers of the Book of Common Prayers (July 6 – August 7), on to contemporary readers of the Old Farmer’s Almanac (July 3 – August 11). Often including the hottest stretch of summer weather, this phrase’s etymology began with an astronomical connection to the rising of Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky, part of the constellation Canis major, the Greater Dog. (more…)

…And all rare blossoms from every clime

Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

            -Percy Bysshe Shelley

We encourage all to visit our newly renovated Asa Gray Garden. In collaboration with the award-winning Halvorson Design Partnership and R. P. Marzilli Landscape Contractor, this garden includes a diverse mix of 130 taxa of trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses, annuals and bulbs which will provide four-seasons of color, texture and interest. An enlarged central water feature and reflecting pool help create a sense of calm within this newly re-designed meditative landscape.

…made him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit

that sung its song unceasingly

and without heeding the vicissitudes around it…

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

In lieu of specific plant discussion, we recall this garden’s namesake, the preeminent nineteenth century botanist, Asa Gray (1810-1888). The eldest of eight siblings of a farmer/tanner in Sauquoit, New York, he graduated from Fairfield Medical College in 1831. Lynn Barber in The Heyday of Natural History 1820-1870 states, “At the beginning of the nineteenth century, all laymen and most scientists believed that the earth and all the species on it had been created by God in six days towards the end of October in the year 4004 B.C.” Gray eschewed an incipient medical practice for a botanical life that led to decades of research and publishing. Later botanical renown positioned him to become the foremost American advocate of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), when in 1859, Origin of Species revealed the then heretical theory of evolution and the process of natural selection. (more…)

…Hey Blue

Ink on a pin

Underneath the skin

An empty space to fill in…

                -Joni Mitchell

We do not know what Joni Mitchell was thinking when she penned these words in 1970. Although, as with much fine artistry, there are multitudinous interpretations unknown to the artist. Herein with Baptisia australis, blue false indigo we focus on the flower color and the plant’s reliable capacity to fill in an empty space. Native from New York/Pennsylvania south to Texas and Georgia, this three-to-four-foot high and wide perennial, develops into a small shrub-like mass. Its alternate, leaves are palmately compound with three 1 ½ to 3-inch leaflets, developing into a bluish-green color. The flowers occur in late May – early June on long terminal racemes. Each flower is about 1-inch long, indigo-blue, although color ranges also to pale lavender or dark violet. (more…)