A Walk with Susan at The New York Botanical Garden

Salvia discolor, The New York Botanical Garden

It's like my oldest friend Christine always says, "wherever you go, there you are", an expression that can mean many things, one being that you cannot escape who you are no matter where you may run or how hard you try. I went to The New York Botanical Garden with Susan yesterday to learn about volunteering for their Citizen Science Tree Phenology program in the native forest after reading a post about the program on NYBG's blog Plant Talk. (Having an excuse to pay attention to the changes of plants throughout the seasons was an appealing idea and since we are doing this anyway, a spreadsheet might make us feel official in some way.) Of course, we got to the garden early so we could wander around in a botanical stupor.

Since wherever I go, therefore I am, I was drawn to the things and plants that capture my attention. So here, three things from yesterday's walk in one of New York City's most magnificent settings for learning about plants: Above, the beautiful Salvia discolor with its mix of contrasting light and dark colors and a visiting pollinator. The more you know about Salvias, the more you fall in love with these genus of plants, (well, at least for me this is true) and if there's something I love for sure, it is a late bloomer. Below, the leaf of a Sweetgum or Liquidambar styracifula, if one must use the proper botanical name. (I prefer this species' common name, if only because I don't have to google the spelling.) If I am my own citizen scientist and can mark the phenology of my own seasons, I can remember this day as the one where I saw my first red Sweetgum leaf of fall. Now I can go out and look for all the other colors this native tree will display this season.

And last, but certainly not least, the mix of the look of the wild with the cultivated, in a section of the new Azalea garden that aims to imitate a high elevation Appalachian bald through the mass planting of grasses and wildflowers.

While it is true that you will be yourself no matter where you are, it is also true that certain places and pursuits will bring you closer to the parts of yourself that you want to nurture. I owe a lot of the joy in my life (my current obsession with plants and gardening) to Joe and his insistance on us filling out an application for a community garden plot ten miles away from our home in Brooklyn. Building our first garden together four years ago and watching in fascination as our vegetables grew opened my eyes finally to the intricate world of the plants and pollinators outside around me. And getting to know that world more fully in these last few years by paying slow attention has made all the difference as I carry myself around to the places I need to go.