Human Flower Project

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Velcome to the Garden

With black fingernails, Gothic gardeners pluck out pinks and yellows. Must be the season of the witch.

That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do
Ivan Albright, 1955
Art Institute, Chicago

In a rare tribute to gloomy flowers, the Winfield (Kansas) Daily Courier reports on goth garden trends. If you’ve had it with cherubs, consider a few gargoyles and a moon vine.

The article mentions dark rose varieties, iron gates, and flourescent night bloomers. I’m especially fond of black hollyhocks (thank you, gimpytwice, for the seed) and all types of brugmansia and datura. At my local garden store one datura variety, shiny purple as eggplant, landed on the sale shelf recently, its leaves all pocked with bugbites. To newly Gothic eyes, blemishes are better. Think I’ll go down and see it it’s still available.

What’s Gothic in your garden this season?

Friday, October 29, 2004

Lawn Morals

In two Northern California suburbs, native plants and flowers assume legal and ethical proportions.

Two recent stories from California suggest that the front yard may constitute the church of 21st Century. Before choosing what to plant, residents would be wise to search their souls (and consult an attorney, too.)

People magazine reports on a couple battling neighbors over a wildflower garden. Jeff and Carolyn Seigrist found that the neighborhood association in their Sacramento suburb had fined them $2,700 for breaching the group’s floral tastes.

“They claimed the native flowers and grasses violated community rules because they didn’t fit the more manicured look favored by the board. ‘(Seigrist) may call it ecologically friendly,’ says a spokesman for Sterling Pointe’s management company. ‘The homeowners’ association calls it unacceptable.’” The homeowners association has gone so far as to put a lien on the Seigrists’ property.

But horticultural self-righteousness isn’t limited to Edged-Lawn-Ites. Today the Sacramento Bee reports on an embattled Xeriscaper in Roseville.

Heather Ogston
Photo: Sacramento Bee

Heather Ogston conscientiously ripped up the turf on her property “and replaced it with what some gardeners call a water-wise, sustainable approach to landscaping,” manzanita, lavender, Japanese pine trees—all plants that can withstand Western drought.
Pictured clutching her infant son, Ogston spoke out with the fervor or a herbivorous Jeanne d’Arc: “I was aware of all the damage that fertilizers and herbicides can do to our rivers. I also wanted to be conscientious and reduce my water use.” Ogston told the paper, “It was a moral stance on lawns.”

Nearly a hundred years ago Max Weber, philosopher and sociologist, wrote that a trait of modern society was to turn from ethical concerns to aesthetic ones. “The refusal of modern men (sic) to assume responsability for moral judgments tends to transform judgments of moral intent into judgements of taste.”

But the green martyrdoms of the Seigrists and Heather Ogston suggest another turn of the sociological sunflower. We’ve made aesthetic choices into moral issues. In the 1970s, some feared that relativism would mean the end of moral society, but it’s not relativism we have to worry about; it’s aesthetic fundamentalism—the kind that can and will damn you for growing the wrong landscape plant.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Stigmas More Precious Than Gold

It’s saffron-harvest time in the Swiss Alps. Local guild organizes to cultivate the world’s costliest spice.

Saffron crocus in Mund, Switzerland
Photo: Swissinfo

Before there was Tempurpedic, Zeus reclined on a bed of saffron flowers, pungent crocus of the Mediterranean. We mere mortals prefer saffron as spice, when we can afford it. The precious orange threads, harvested from the stigmas of crocus sativus , cost about $10 a gram (the weight of a paper clip) and turn whatever they touch a luscious, setting-sun gold.

While saffron is native to Iran and Turkey, today most of it is grown in Spain, where it flavors and colors the national casserole: paella. So what a surprise to learn that Mund, Switzerland, is growing some of the finest saffron in the world.

In 1979, farmers in the village started a saffron guild, after seeing that the crocus was gradually disappearing from this habitat. An article from swissinfo calls saffron farming “a tradition that dates back in Mund to the 14th century.” Since farmer organized 25 years ago, “the saffron fields have grown to cover 16,000 square metres. they have put the village on the map.”

It takes 130 flowers’ worth of crocus to produce one gram of the orange spice (75,000 blossoms to a pound). But the taste is— what?—pungent, bitter, sweet, all at once. Let the Olympians sort it out at their next slumber party.

In Mund, saffron flavors pasta, bread, and risotto. There’s even a locally made crocus aperitif. Here are directions for soup from a whole site of saffron dishes.

Saffron Soup
Ingredients

200 g.  (7 oz.) bacon diced
1 medium onion quartered
1 kg. (2.2 lbs.) potatoes peeled & diced
2 cups leeks sliced 1 inch
3 Chicken Broth Cube dissolved in
6 cups water
1/2 tsp. Turmeric
1 tbsp. Saffron
2 tbsps. white wine
1/4 cup Calamansi Juice (Lime Citrus) juice
1 170 g. (6 oz.) Cream
salt to taste
Garnish - snipped chives

Directions:

Cook bacon until crisp; set aside. In the bacon fat, saute next three ingredients until onions are limp. Return bacon and add broth, turmeric and saffron. Simmer about 10 min. or until potato is cooked.  Cool then pass through a blender or a sieve until smooth. Add in remaining ingredients except chives.

Simmer for about 10 minutes more then serve garnished with snipped chives.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Memorials: Running on Psychic Time

An Ontario town debates maintaining a floral tribute, memorial to a local teenager.

Memory can be so unpleasant, so inconvenient, downright unattractive.

Just this week newspapers reported on a new pharmaceutical that may numb and shrivel the memory of traumatic events. This particular drug may be new but it’s an old endeavor. Anybody ever heard of wine?

With flowers, people take a wiser approach. Rather than squelching memories , flowers revive them, but in a new, bright, and conspicuously formal way. By their tenderness and transience, flowers both re-enact the experience of loss and buffer pain. 

This week a Canadian newspaper reports one town’s debate over a floral tribute to a teenage girl who was murdered two years ago. After Robbie McClennan was killed in Dragonfly Park in 2002, flowers were laid at the park entrance.

The Orangeville (Ontario) Bulletin reported yesterday that “a request to remove the flowers came to council in June, when East Entrance Beautification committee member Dave Ferrier said the park needs to shake the image of murder.” A public meeting on the topic was cancelled, and both the city and local newspapers received heaps of letters on the topic. “These flowers are not placed there as a reminder of murder,” one citizen wrote, “but as a memory for the grieving family and friends.”

Ferrier had proposed “a policy which prevents people from marking tragedies in this manner for more than a year.” The mayor has suggested permitting the flowers to remain “until after the murder trial comes to a close.” I don’t believe there’s any way to regulate how or how long people will “mark a tragedy.” Custom may dictate that a widow wear black for a year, but the heart (another word for memory) keeps a schedule of its own.

Roadside Memorial, Seguin, TX
Photo: Julie Ardery

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

The Swap Is Mightier Than the Sale

A first-time seed swapper is raring to dig in.

Yesterday a padded envelope arrived. “Gimpytwice,” whom I’d met on an internet gardening forum, had mailed me a fat bundle of mixed hollyhock seeds, in exchange for the cardinal vine seed I’m harvesting along the porch rail.

Like ships in the night, our seed envelopes crossed in the mail, arriving here in Austin, Texas, and there in Marion, Ohio, the same day.

I have no sense of Gimpytwice’s age, but she’s clearly an old hand at seed swapping. Rather than raving with delight, she promptly e-mailed me her mailing address and her real name. The hollyhock seed came sealed in a tiny plastic packet (the kind that seasoned swappers buy in bulk and then conserve and recycle). She enclosed a slip of paper “Thanks, Julie. Feel free to reuse envelope” and a gentle reminder of our agreement: “cardinal vine for hollyhocks.” I also found a preaddressed seal, two 37 cent postage stamps, and a second seed packet, containing “Free Mix Color Spider Flower 2004,” little specks of black and brown. (I think this qualifies as lagniappe.) All I’d mailed to her was about 30 cardinal vine seeds taped up ingenue-style in a piece of notepaper and a memo gushing enthusiasm.

I’m getting the picture: swappers don’t want praise and commentary, they want seed and postage.

Hollyhocks Photo: tawny tahni

In former times, gardeners relied on neighbors and relatives for seed-swapping. Steve Bender and Felder Rushing’s book Passalong Plants offers a fun review of this old-timey custom. But, today, if you aren’t on speaking—much less swapping—terms with neighbors or relatives, you can still exchange seed thanks to the internet.

Look at the seed exchange forum on the Garden Web. That’s where I met gimpytwice. There’s a wealth of both generosity and desire out there, people who have lost their last “bat face” plants and are eager to replace them, people with “chocolate cosmos” to offer. “I would like Queen Anne’s Lace and small cherry tomato seed,” pleads “shoe” from Missouri’s Zone 6. “Planting nut,” a swapper from North Florida, announces “The pink moon vine has finished for this year. I have seeds now for those who are still looking.”

I have no idea what pink moon vine is. I wasn’t looking, but I am now. self-addressed padded envelope and two postage stamps are on the way.

(Here’s a second seed swap source I haven’t tried, though it looks promising. Less Americentric, this site includes a “world seed exchange.")

Monday, October 25, 2004

Korean Floral Customs Change but White Wreaths Have the Last Word

Koreans are enjoying orchids, now plentiful for the first time, but for obsequies they still choose the traditional white chrysanthemum.

A column in today’s Manila Bulletin report on flower trends in Korea. Dr. Benito S. Vergara observed that Koreans, who ten years ago might splurge on one or two cut orchid flowers, today are treating themselves to arrangements of 6-12 live orchid plants, even during the winter months. Seoul hotels, restaurants and business offices are “awash with phalaenopsis and dendrobium flowers,” the story reports. The Korean government and cut-flower producers have stepped up production so that these once exotic varieties are now affordable.

Vergara, recently back from a trip to Korea, observes, “ The yellow single-headed, large mums used to be the standard flowers during autumn. We did not see any of them anymore this year. However, the white mums are still in demand for funeral wreaths.”

Korean funeral wreaths tend to be monumental, often 10 feet in diameter, and draped with inscribed black ribbons. Monstera leaves are customarily used to offset the white flowers. “Foliage similar to kamuning or sinamomo are also used as fillers,” Vergara adds. He describes these arrangements as “standard with very little variation except where some yellow mums are added.”

Representatives of N. Korea send condolences and white funeral wreath
Photo: The People’s Korea

A floral moment in recent Korean history occurred in March 2001, when emissaries from North Korea’s leader Kim Jong II traveled South for the funeral of Hyundai founder Jong Ju Yong, “the first time the DPRK leader has sent an official message of condolence upon the death of a South Korean.” The North Koreans paid their respects, in part, with a huge white wreath of flowers.

Evidence that the white flower presides at funerals throughout much of SE Asia (and elsewhere in the world too), is this photo from the January 2004 funeral of Hong Kong pop singer Anita Mui.

Anita Mui Kim-Fong funeral in Hong Kong, Jan. 12, 2004
Photo: the Sun

Masked Deliverymen

Two Holmdel, New Jersey, residents have been burglarized so far this year by men claiming to be delivering flowers.

A puzzling story in today’s Independent (Holmdel, NJ) reports that thieves posing as flower delivermen stole a safe containing some $750,000 of jewelry from a Holmdel house.

Local police said that in May, a group of men claiming to be on a flower delivery errand entered another house in the town, pistol whipped the resident, and stole cash.

Condolences to these innocent folks.

Let’s all repeat together now:

Flower deliverers don’t travel in packs.
Flower deliverers don’t wear masks.
Flower deliverers are carrying flowers.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

The Idea of Order in Tuscaloosa

Calling all Rudy Giuliani fans: take a tip from gardener Vera Horton.

Back in the 1990s, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was tough on crime and tough on civil liberties too. Giuliani had been intrigued by a study called “Broken Windows” that tied crime rates to minor traces of public disorder. “Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.” So said a 1982 article published in the Atlantic Monthly.

Giuliani proceeded to beef up policing and surveillance in New York and crack down on graffiti and panhandling. Rates of violent crime declined. So did civil liberties.

The Tuscaloosa (AL) News reports on another kind of “Broken Windows” initiative. Vera Horton, a 61-year-old gardener, is fighting crime in West Tuscaloosa with “banana trees, angel trumpets, crape myrtle, geraniums and pumpkins. She chose to use her yard on 21st Street as the cornerstone of a project to help the area called Silver Park look better than its name, rather than remain tagged one of the worst places in the city.”

In Vera Horton’s Garden
Photo: Jason Getz, Tuscaloosa News

She asked the city council for help but was turned down. So after bringing her own corner lot to bloom, she went door-to-door offering to do the same for her neighbors. Interest in gardening has spread. A city council member told the Tuscaloosa paper, “Crime is down, street lights have been put up, a police substation is there… We’re looking anytime now to plant those crape myrtles Horton wants.”

New York’s mayor had proposed—and then claimed to have proved—that creating order decreased crime. Vera Horton had the same premise, only her idea of order wasn’t to expand arrests but to extend flowering gardens.

“Freedom is about authority,” Giuliani told Newsday in 1998. “Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it.”

Horton holds another view—rather than ceding authority, freedom is about assuming responsibility, to work with others on behalf of the common good.

“I just remind people that some things we just have to do for ourselves,” Horton said. “We knew that no one was going to do it but us, so we did it.”

(For a good essay on the “Broken Windows” theory of crime prevention, check this piece on ambiguous.org.)

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Repatriation—It’s for Flowers, Too

Dutch ambassador to Pakistan vows to help revive the tulip in its native land.

Tulips conjure thoughts of wooden shoes and windmills. But this beloved spring bloomer, its bulbs being planted all over the U.S. now, is actually a native of Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.

In the world of art and antiquities, we’ve gradually warmed up to the idea of repatriation: returning cultural treasures to their lands of origin. So what about flowers? Tulips are just one of West’s popular varieties that were received as gifts from Eastern dignitaries or, more commonly, stolen by horticultural prospectors.

The Daily Times of Lakore (Pakistan) reports that the Netherlands has promised to bring tulips back to Pakistan.

The Dutch ambassador to Islamabad “said he wished to share his country’s knowledge and expertise with Pakistan in the field of floriculture, as it could be ‘a better field for cooperation’ between the two nations.

“’I have handed over my credentials to President General Pervez Musharraf as ambassador to Pakistan,’ he said. ‘But the true ambassadors of the Netherlands are the Dutch flowers, particularly, the tulip...We have decided to let the flowers speak for themselves.”

Wild tulips in Kazakstan Photo: David Victor

An official from the Pakistani horticulture department cordially thanked the ambassador, calling the tulip “ a symbol of love and friendship.” Really? In Iran, the tulip symbolizes the bloodshed of young heroes who’ve died protecting the homeland.

There’s repatriation, there’s blood, there’s love, and let’s not forget about money. Holland clearly would like to improve the market for its bulbs in Pakistan, and Pakistan’s horticulture executive welcomed the chance for his country’s “traders to meet Dutch companies’ officials and discuss the transfer of technologies and techniques and investment in Pakistan.”

Tulips, start talking.

Friday, October 22, 2004

The Stuff of Urban Legend, and Florist History

A child picks up silk flowers in Toronto and winds up at the hospital.

First there were razors in candied apples at Halloween, or so somebody said, putting the kabosh on trick or treating. (In my youth, this rumor ran around, and some communities urged parents to have their children’s bubble-gum and Snickers x-rayed.)

Now the Toronto Sun reports that a 10-year-old girl picked up artificial flowers booby-thorned with razor blades.

“Police are worried the incident is a copycat crime in the wake of razor blades found hidden in a beach volleyball court in Toronto last month, and shards of glass found glued to a children’s slide at a Burlington public park this month,” the Sun reported.

Rema Salisbury, the Canadian child, wound up with stitches in her finger. She isn’t the first person to be cut by razor-bearing flowers, though. Gerald McPhail, owner of Airport Florist in Austin, Texas, explained to me that in the 1940s and ‘50s, every sizeable flower shop was equipped with a “picking machine.”

“It would mechanically put a steel pick on the end of a flower,” so that a florist could poke each flower precisely into a funeral spray, McPhail said.

“It’s just a little thin piece of aluminum or tin, razor sharp, and it had barbs on it,” McPhail explained. “There’s very bad stories about young people doing things at funeral homes or stuff they shouldn’t do, throwing and playing catch and grabbing and getting one of those picks and almost literally cutting a finger off.” Florists, too, might be hasty, “getting their finger the wrong way into the machine and picking their finger. It’s off to Brackenridge (Hospital) and a couple of hours surgery to get that pick off of you.”