Seed Starting Workshop

Saturday, February 11, 2012
11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

Roses From The Wrong Man from Christine Lavin on Vimeo.

If you are feeling that winter is finally here, it may well be. On the other hand, we are being pulled towards spring by new blooms: snowdrops (in my plot, west of the birdbath) and also a flowering twig (quince?) in the SE corner of the garden. This means that spring may not be here, but last year is over. Crocus will be next. Check them out if you have winter blahs.

Leslie

Dear Leslie,

I think we should definitely have a new plant club meeting soon. Winter is great for being able to see the structure of things. I am looking to refurbish the front entrance of the BRC with roses (have you heard of “Darlow’s Enigma”?) and possibly some grass? and definitely something that will hang over the ugly concrete planters. Suggestions welcome,

Kate

Hello Kate et al.

I am wondering if we could create a “world peace rose garden” – there are many throughout the world and I think it could work very well with our garden. (see the mission statement below)

In particular I would like to ask that our garden create some memorial plantings for Private Danny Chen, the young man from our community who was murdered by his fellow American troops in Afghanistan.

Jane

Dear Jane,

Absolutely. We should figure out what we want to plant and have a sign made. Do you want to plant an actual ‘Peace’ rose in our rose plot that Sara and I have been tending? Cheers,

Kate

Dear Kate and other rosarians(?),

I love a good rose. I’ll have to look up Darlow’s Enigma. What a name! I am partial to older rose varieties, which have more fragrance than new ones and fewer problems. Check out rosesofyesterdayandtoday.com. Also northcreekfarm.org, where I’ve gotten some rugosas (the beach rose family). They will make you swoon. A plant meeting sounds great.

Leslie

Darlow's Enigma Rose

Jonathan Drori: The beautiful tricks of flowers

Roger Doiron: My subversive (garden) plot

Here is a link to a great website, Plants for a Future.

Here are some links for more information:

On Being episode

Slow Food Detroit

Earthworks Urban Farms

Brewster the Rooster

With great sadness, I report that our beloved rooster has left this earth for higher ground. After a long, severe illness for which there is no known cure, I found a remedy a few weeks ago and for those short weeks he made amazing progress. Suddenly he took a turn for the worse and a few days later quietly passed on.

Noone knew his background except that he was unwanted.  Many people in the community came to know how fun, exciting, playful and unique a rooster can be, and with all the care he needed for his intense health issues, I eventually came to learn how loving and tender Brewster was. It was a privilege and an honor to serve him and care for him, since he was kind of a symbol for what a community can do for an outcast, be it person, plant, animal or public space. I served the community to keep him well and bring him a hopeful future. Not all members of the garden agreed to keep him, or even cared about what happened to him, but then, the garden is full of all kinds of life that has found existence through mutual support, so why not an accidental rooster too?

I know I will never be the same after this intense experience. His health care took hours out of my day, away from any personal time, for many months. Many people marvel at the commitment of time, but I only did what to me seemed to be the right thing to do, day after day. Although I was unattached to the outcome, I really hoped he would get better and be able to have an enjoyable future since he spent a lot of his time with us being hand fed and convalescing. He was really part of our family, with the other birds here, all of them eating together and the rooster getting up eventually whenever I would get up and he was invited to join us, from his sleeping post.

He will be sorely missed, and the space in my heart that had grown much larger while I had a chance to love him, will be empty until I can fill it with an even larger capacity to love.

Kind regards,

Elizabeth Hardwick

Architect

I have grown up going to a community garden across the street from my house since I was born. Most of my childhood memories come from there. This garden was built by a courageous man. His name is Bob Humber. His skin is the color of dark soil and he has sad but kind eyes. Back in the 80s, he found this patch of land, which was a place where people went to do drugs or sell them. He thought that there was so much more to life than this, so he went to the city board and got permission to build a community garden. Bob got the neighborhood people together, and they began to build a garden instead of doing drugs and committing crime. It wasn’t easy but they achieved their goal.

This garden was one of the first big improvements in this neighborhood. The garden is named the M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden because it was built on an old African burial ground. The name means “garden at the edge of the other side of the world.” M’Finda Kalunga is open three days a week to the public. It has multicultural festivals that bring people together for free and create a warm community.

This garden means a lot to me. I have been coming and participating as a member of its community. I have a group of friends from the garden who share the same memories from it as I. From planting flowers each season to playing hide and seek behind the trees and digging for worms; it is a little sanctuary where anyone can go to be in nature. Bob is responsible for making this garden possible and making it thrive. To this day whenever I walk by the garden, I see Bob sitting there at the gate, just like old times, and remember all the memories I had and am still making behind those gates.

Lucia Bell-Epstein (13)