I Simply Remember These Favorite Things, and then I Can Smile All Day
Episode 13, October 2023
A Plant:
Chrysanthemum ‘Apricot Single’
It is October, and I assume that your garden outlets are awash in pot mums. For quick fall color, they are most impressive, in fact, I have one by the front door. They work …. and then they become compost.
For me, I love the anticipation of flowers to come and I wait all season for the appearance of the blossoms of the true perennial mums. They are cold hardy to Montreal, Quebec, heat hardy to Athens, GA and persist for years. My favorite is ‘Apricot Single’ whose dozens of flowers provide wonderful late fall color. Unfortunately, plants may be difficult to find, but there are many others out there as well. If you can’t find it, look for ‘Ryan’s Pink’
A Garden:
St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, England
The world is our garden, and there is plenty of world to see. The spectacular grounds and castle of St Michael’s Mount lie on an island just beyond the town of Marazion in southern Cornwall. At low tide, one can walk across Mount’s Bay to the island but at high tide, the island sinks and a boat is necessary.
The trek to the top the mount is not for the faint of heart, but the gardens all along the climb are beautiful. And the sight from the top is more than awesome.
A Book:
How We Got to Now; six innovations that made the modern world.
Author: Steven Johnson
Nonfiction. Have you ever wondered why flash photography led to antipoverty programs at the turn of the 20th century? Or how the invention of the laser contributed to the decline of mom-and-pop stores? Or why spectacles coincided with the invention of the printing press? It is likely that few of us, other than the author have. He examines six themes — glass, cold, sound, cleanliness, time and light, from their beginnings in history and proceeds to connect the dots to show us how “we got to now”. Sounds a little boring but it is anything but.
By the way, the invention of flash photography finally allowed Jacob Riis to capture the images of dismal tenement life on New York’s Lower East Side that he had already been writing about, with little impact, for years. And the laser begat the bar code that, in turn, gave an efficiency advantage to stores like Target and Walmart. And it turns out that once the printing press made books “available” to the common people, it turns out that they were all near-sighted.
Johnson shows that innovation is almost never the result of a lone genius experiencing a sudden voilà! moment; it is a complex process involving a dizzying number of inputs, individuals, setbacks and (sometimes) accidents.
This is was one of the most fascinating books I have read … and wait until you meet Clarence Birdseye.
A Show:
Hijack
You know if Idris Elba is in a show, it will likely be very good. When this series came out, we thought we would give it a try, and after the first episode we were hooked.
The whys and wherefore of hijacking an airplane, kept us coming back for more. The acting was excellent and the suspense non-stop.
A Place:
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada,
A trip to the Great Northland can be a simple journey, without the need to cross an ocean or to study a different language. And one of the finest small towns in the great province of Ontario is Niagara-on-the-Lake, or NOTL for short. The town has dozens of lovely shops, selling extraordinary local art to, extraordinary butter tarts. And during the summer, the renown Shaw Festival attracts theatre lovers as well. However, NOTL is a plant lovers dream; almost every shop has beautiful plantings, and the town itself is a horticultural park. Situated less than 10 miles from Niagara Falls, simply follow the Niagara parkway along the swift-flowing Niagara river, past the Niagara Parks School of Horticulture, and the amazing Floral Clock … and you will soon arrive. Enjoy your visit!