Plants as a Bridge

I know I've been terrible about blogging this season. It makes me sad, because other than the weird tan lines left by early summer sunburns, this is the best record I have of what happened in the garden. And I like to think that someone out there might read it and misses me when I'm gone.

So, let me start off by saying my day job has been keeping me busy, and I like to rest on the bus rather than blog. That being said, I have some things to say today.

An acquaintance I have through my work and I got to talking a few months ago about gardening. It turns out that her dad was quite the horticulturalist before he passed away and that her mom carries on with an amazing garden now that he is gone. We agreed to do a bit of plant exchange. I gave her mom some of the heirloom tomatoes that I started from seed, and she gave me some awesome Vietnamese herbs in return.

I am SO happy to have these herbs. First, they are beautiful and they smell so good. But more than that, I am reminded that trading ideas and experiences with plants as well as the plants themselves does something amazing. It opens up this avenue of common experience between people that I have never had with anything else. The best cross cultural (and cross generational) interactions I've ever had center around finding this common language of plants (or farm animals). People who love plants love to talk about them to EVERYONE (really. You can interrupt me doing just about anything to talk about plants and I will be thrilled to talk to you). There's this light that suffuses a plant lover's face as they tell you about something they grow, and their desire to share it can overcome language, accent, age.

I adore plants and the people who grow them. The end.