Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

While I am in Saint Louis prostituting myself for plants at the Perennial Plant Symposium Horticulturist Geoff VonBurg is filling in for me. One of Geoff’s gardens here is the recently restored Orchard. But I have no idea what he is blogging about. Thanks Geoff.

Irvin Etienne, Aesthetic Czar, whose garden trowel I am not worthy to clean, is away this week.  He said something about a professional conference in St Louis, but I hear Dolly Parton is performing in Branson, so I’m not sure…

Anyway, he left me keys to the blog-o-graph and said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

More and more this season, I have been enraptured with wonder at what nature does.  For the blog’s title, I turned to Jens Jensen, one of the great evangelists for the church of mother earth.   In the first chapter of Siftings (1939) he said that the “[natural world] about us has within it all the joy and happiness that we need.”  Amen.  As much as my life is enriched by the amazing work I see in our galleries, more nourishing for my soul is the beauty and humility of plants.  I want to offer three little samples.

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Two days in a row above 40! I can hardly believe it. Of course it will drop to the teens tonight with a high of barely 20 over the week-end. But that doesn’t change the facts. Two days in a row with temperatures above 40! With sunshine! Almost makes a person want to do the Happy Dance.

Rather instead, we got out in the Ravine Garden to do some pruning on everything from junipers to shrub roses to crabapples. It was still a bit on the cold side when kneeling in snow. And we had to be careful about walking up and down the steps as they are still snow and ice covered. All in all though, it was nice to be able to get outside and do some gardening. Not that I have all my “inside” work finished. Read the rest of this entry »