{"id":302,"date":"2014-08-02T14:54:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-02T18:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/?p=302"},"modified":"2015-10-19T23:43:34","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T03:43:34","slug":"2014-memory-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/?p=302","title":{"rendered":"2014 Memory Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the memory garden? This is a long-term project I’ve had in my head for many years, and will take years to realize. I thought it would be nice to include in my larger garden a collection of plants that were from places I’ve lived over the years, and I’ve lived in a lot. Collect a seed from, or take a cutting of, a noteworthy plant, perhaps a run-of-the-mill maple or an\u00a0extraordinary palm, from an address where I’ve lived, and try to grow it.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1817_2014_05_07_MemoryGarden\"<\/a>
Wisteria, Stuyvesant Street, East Village, NYC, May 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I’m back in NYC after years away, I turned to my old stomping grounds in the East Village first, since they were easy to get to. My favorite individual plant in New York is the five-story Wisteria growing on a tiny one-block diagonal street called Stuyvesant Street. Here it is in full bloom, in early May 2014.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1816_2014_05_07_MemoryGarden_cropped\"<\/a>
Wisteria, Stuyvesant Street, East Village, NYC, May 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"IMG_2101_2014_09_03_MemoryGarden_cropped\"<\/a>
Wisteria, Stuyvesant Street, East Village, NYC, September 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here, later in September, we see its beautifully funny, fuzzy seed pods, looking like fat beans hanging down, too high up to grab. A few weeks later I found a couple that had fallen and collected them. When dried, the pods will suddenly twist open one day, explosively firing their seeds over a distance of some feet.<\/p>\n

I planted a few in early 2014 along with my garden veggies. It took weeks, I think, maybe months… but eventually they sprouted. Here’s the one that survived all season. I eventually took it indoors to protect it from winter, but it came within a hair’s breath of dying. Come midsummer, it picked itself up and kept shooting out new leaves. I’ll have to find a way to protect it this year. They say it may take ten or twenty years before it flowers. My goal: two years. OK, that’s not realistic, but a man can dream.<\/p>\n

\"_MG_0126_2014_MemoryGarden\"<\/a>
Baby Wisteria, grown\u00a0from seed collected from Stuyvesant Street mother plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"_MG_0120_2014_07_20_MemoryGarden\"<\/a>
Baby Locust Tree, grown from seed collected from mother tree on East 10th St, Manhattan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few blocks away on East 10th Street, there’s a humble Locust tree that goes unnoticed by passersby in its midblock tree bed. I took some seeds from it as well, as it’s perched in front of the apartment I used to live in.<\/p>\n

Months later, and I mean about\u00a0five months later, one of its seeds finally sprouted, long after I’d given up hope and wondered why I was still watering its pot. Welcome to the family!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the memory garden? This is a long-term project I’ve had in my head for many years, and will take years to realize. I thought it would be nice to include in my larger garden a collection of plants that were from places I’ve lived over the years, and I’ve lived in a lot. Collect … Continue reading 2014 Memory Garden<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,52],"tags":[54,53],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-74","category-memory-garden","tag-locust-tree","tag-wisteria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1074,"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivefurrow.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}