Re:Philosophical Question
- To:
- Subject: Re:Philosophical Question
- From: K* W*
- Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:41:24 -0700
Yes, I'd say we are a very diverse bunch! I don't really live in a true
Mediterannean climate here in the Sonoran Desert, but there is a lot of
overlap. I also enjoy reading descriptions about plants and other people's
gardening situations, even when I have no intention of finding the plants
being described and trying to plant them.
In fact, my aims (as far as I can tell) are somewhat different from many
people's on the list. I'm not really much of a collector of "exotic" (ie
non-native to this region) plants, except maybe for herbs, which I grow
because I love plants that smell good and because they are so useful in the
kitchen. But in terms of what I plant I tend to lean towards mostly native
stuff, mostly because I live in an urban setting and it seems to me it's
more and more important for urban dwellers to try to provide native habitat
for birds, lizards, and other small critters. In a city like Tucson,
there's still a fairly large number of native species that can survive in
the city if provided with adequate habitat. Lately I've become enamored
with butterflies (mainly because some considerate bird planted a native
passionflower vine, Passiflora foetida, in my garden a year or two back and
this summer a large population of Gulf fritillary butterflies--don't know
the Latin name but they are brilliant orange on the upper side of the wings
with large silver disks on the bottom side--established themselves in the
garden because of it. The vine is their larval plant food. It was
fascinating to watch the interplay among vine, butterflies and
caterpillars. AT one point the caterpillars (dozens if not hundreds of
them) pretty much stripped the vine to its stems, but now that it's cooler
the vine is coming back and the butterflies are much less active. I don't
know if I would have tolerated this much damage to some plant I had bought
in the nursery or raised from seed, but since it was planted "naturally" I
found it much easier, and terrifically interesting, to just see what would
happen if I let the butterflies be...
IN terms of this list: Like many others, I also enjoy reading descriptions
of other Mediterranean climates. I think of how I'd like to travel to some
of these places (and sometimes save messages from people, thinking, "if I
go there maybe I will contact that person and see if I can go visit their
garden!"). So many fascinating places to visit! So many interesting people
out there!
Finally, the list can be interesting in terms of my professional work,
because I am always interested in collecting information about arid lands
around the world--I never know when some little tidbit of information might
be useful, or when some person on the list might turn out to be a useful
contact!
There must be just about as many reasons for gardening as there are
gardeners, but I feel sure that for most of us it has a spiritual side, a
physical enjoyment/exercise side, and a staying-connected-with-nature side
to it.
best regards to all,
Katherine Waser (in the Sonoran Desert where, oh joy and rapture
unforeseen, it's raining, raining, raining!)
****************************************************************************
Katherine Waser, Editor Tel: 520-621-8584
Arid Lands Information Center Fax: 520-621-3816
The University of Arizona E-mail: kwaser@ag.arizona.edu
1955 E. 6th St.
Tucson, AZ 85719-5224
USA
