Does it count that I read the November installment of Anna Pavord's The Curious Gardener in November, but I ran out of steam over the weekend so am just now sharing what I read. It's only the first day of December, so not too terribly late. It seemed fitting that I also share a very few of the photos I took of the new conservatory at the Lauritzen Gardens. I visited the day before Thanksgiving. It was a suitably cold and dreary day, which made being in a warm and colorful environment all the more pleasing.
The conservatory is huge. It consists of several glass partitions that gently slope upwards. The first section is the coolest but as you slowly walk up the incline you can feel the humidity get thicker. You won't hear me say this in the summer, but boy how nice it feels on a cold wintry day.
Isn't this gorgeous? I wasn't able to stop and really soak it all in and read names of plants and flowers as the place was packed (despite how 'empty' of people my photos appear). There are loads of exotic flowers, ferns, trees and even cacti. I love the lily pond and the bamboo trees.
At the very top there is a small area with cushioned seats and I can picture myself sitting there with a book on the coldest, snowiest day of the year sitting in blissful warmth while it is nasty outside. And I love these Tiki guys. Sadly my photos of this area didn't turn out well, so the fiercest of the group is hidden. I like the holiday hats, however. How festive of them! You can't be too scared of a fierce-looking Tiki guy wearing a Santa hat!
Alas no Tikis in my Curious Gardener reading. Pavord opens the chapter on the changing temperatures that the UK has shown, though she doesn't go on so much about climate change. It is a matter of showing rather than telling in this case. What I like very much about this book, while she does write in a way that assumes the reader is fairly garden-savvy, she never lectures or talks down to her reader. Something I appreciate. Climate change obviously does affect and changes growing habits and patterns, but when all is said and down, the natural world knows how to take care of itself.
"Self-preservation, not altruism, is at the centre of our concern with global warming. Plants are exquisitely adaptive creatures, and will survive things that we cannot. Largely, they are destroyed not by climate change but by human greed. When we have gone they can once again get on with what they were doing for a hundred million years before we ever arrived on scene."
I fear there is far more to the story, but I think she is right that nature does know how to adapt, even if it means things will be lost or altered.
She's very good at segueing into peripheral topics that are a way to explore some other topic entirely. She writes about "shedding"--about getting rid of all the clutter. Somehow she gets onto the topic of Christmas cakes, and reading this only made my stomach grumble with hunger for something sweet.
"For years, season after season, I made vast Christmas cakes with tooth-rotting amounts of crystallized fruit soaked in brandy. I made my own marzipan, whipped up royal icing with egg whites, traced spidery patterns and a drunken Merry Christmas on the top with my icing set (it was those icing nozzles that she was getting ready to "shed"). The cake was part of the ritual of preparing for a family Christmas, but nobody ever wanted to eat it. First, they were too full after lunch. Then, when the children got older and we switched to an evening feast, they said they were saving themselves for the turkey. Finally, I got the message. The cake was redundant."
Cake is pretty good, but it was this reference that I could mentally nod in agreement to.
"There's just a point sometimes when clutter, instead of being a comfort, becomes a burden. Your dream centres on a space, free of jumble, with a log fire and walls of books."
Yes, now that I can understand completely.
She talks about minimalism in the garden, about Lotusland in California (she visits the most amazing gardens and every months shares something of her travels), about garden designers (she prefers her own ordering and creating in her garden space as it is a reflection of her own tastes). But it's pears that I enjoyed reading about most this month. She is a pear connoisseur, and I can appreciate that. I appreciate a tasty pear, too.
"I planted a pear tree as soon as we moved into our house. You can keep your apples: cold-fleshed, self-satisfied fruit. I'm for pears, melting pears, with skins speckled and freckled with russet spots and flesh that dissolves like butter in your mouth. Already I'm prowling up and down pear trees--there are fourteen of them now in the garden--counting the crop, imagining the day, probably in October, when I can sink my teeth into the first 'Beurre Hardy' of the season."
Okay, so I will say that I am an equal-opportunity fruit lover. Or maybe it's just plain greed. I like just about every fruit--fresh or dried (with the exception of papayas--which I want to love, but just can't). Apples are a daily staple with me, as are pears (most of the time).
"A pear comes to its climax very slowly, but, once there, collapses swiftly. If you are a pear fancier, there is no greater disappointment than to sink your teeth into what looks like a perfect fruit only to find a grey, runny, slightly alcoholic mess just underneath the skin. Pears are like Russian statesmen. The outward appearance gives little indication of what is going on inside."
Yes, once they go, that's it. A mushy mess. But 'tis the season and I enjoy one after dinner nearly every night. Only I get the common varieties and like so much else that I have encountered in this book--she writes about all the varieties of fruits and veggies that I will not find in my local supermarket. More's the pity. But it is always fun to read about them.
Only twenty or so pages stand between me and the end of this book. I have enjoyed it enormously even if some of it has been a little over my head. I am on the lookout now for my next serial read. But there is still December to read about and write about. Can you believe that there are just over four weeks left in the year?