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Monday, December 28, 2009

Jamaica in winter

That's Jamaica Kincaid, author of My Garden (Book), published a decade ago. Her thoughts on winter in the garden: "It is winter and so my garden does not exist; in its place are these mounds of white, the raised beds covered with snow, like a graveyard ... The snow covers the ground in the garden with the determination of death, an unyielding grip, and the whiteness of it is an eraser, so that I am almost in a state of disbelief." Kincaid grew up in Antigua, so, as they say, she's entitled. She lives in Vermont now, and she hates the chill, the snow, the - as she puts it - erasing of winter, though how could she not love this hydrangea in December? Reading her book last week, I was impressed - if that's the word - by Kincaid's rambunctious spending. The woman's appetite for buying plants knows few boundaries. She orders with impunity from catalogues. She scours local and faraway nurseries. She even goes on plant-finding expeditions to China - and she doesn't do this for a living! All I can say is, she must have a lot of property and a big bank account. Still, she's restless: "I shall never have the garden I have in my mind, but that for me is the joy of it; certain things can never be realized and so all the more reason to attempt them. A garden, no matter how good it is, must never completely satisfy. The world as we know it, after all, began in a very good garden, a completely satisfying garden - Paradise - but after a while, the owner and the occupants wanted more." So there you have it. Permission to obsess.
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About Virginia A. Smith
Ginny Smith, a Philadelphia native, worked as a reporter at newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Ohio – with six short months at the end of the Bulletin tossed in – before returning to Philadelphia in 1985 to join the Inquirer. Her favorite beats here have included Center City, roving around Pennsylvania (and getting paid for it!) and alternative medicine. She’s also been City Editor and Pennsylvania Editor. Ginny has been happily writing – and learning - about gardening fulltime since 2006. She’s won two silver medals of achievement from the national Garden Writers Association and in 2011, Bartram’s Garden honored her with its Green Exemplar award for her stories about “the region’s deeply rooted horticultural history, cultural attractions and bountiful gardens.”
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