Collecting

Dried Weeping Beech cutting at Susan's.

Horticulture and the art of collecting often go hand in hand. The collected can be anything from a new variety of Salvia or Basil grown in the garden bed, a new species of wildflower witnessed or identified added to a life list, or a salvaged seedhead or branch for drying. My friend Susan is a collector of many things, plates and paintings included. Above, a branch cutting from Brooklyn Botanic's Weeping Beech that Susan collected right before the leaves opened when the bud was swelling and pink. It's still beautiful in its decay two seasons later. Below, the remains of a collection of botanical beauties from a year spent on the grounds at Brooklyn Botanic. You have to admire each good collection that you come upon in life and the passion of each collector, whether the collector is a person, a gardener or a group of people functioning as an institution, like a museum or botanic garden. I'd never thought about it before now, but I guess this blog and my photographs are my collection of the botanical things I've been captured by this year.



Some remnants of Susan's locker collection; "finds" on the grounds at Brooklyn Botanic.