The Philadelphia Flower show celebrates 180 years and its parent Pennsylvania Horticultural Society its 182nd year.  Happy Birthday! 

Over a thousand bloom-hungry patrons in gowns and black tie flocked to Preview Night last Saturday, enjoying the sights, sounds and tastes of Italy, the show’s 2009 theme, an eye, ear, nose and throat exam for stir-crazy Philly gardeners.  I saw a few wonderful exhibits:  a whimsical Sienese “palio” with the colorful flags and drama of the city’s famous horse race; an attractively weird grotto motif and Spinal Tap-like display of the Mediterranean region’s myths and gods, including African—flawlessly executed, very imaginative and lots of fun; a handsome but dreary Venetian canal with a depressing black gondola; a Roman castle complete with a spectacular allee of columns and strolling singers; a little hill of Lake Como pines; a terrace from Tuscany; a striking Florentine Duomo cleverly suggested by a giant garden gazebo; an odd but popular Milanese fashion showroom or “bottega” of women’s hats, shoes and even dresses made of plant parts; a post-modern, edgy and stylish art sculpture of cut flowers in hundreds of little bottom-lit bottles in two rows flanking a large cubic space of European-style plant sculptures that was peculiarly static; and finally, a series of lonely-looking painted trees weeping, no less, that was technically marvelous.  These are just the highlights I could recall of the main exhibits.

The entire exhibition area suffers from poor lighting.  As soon as you enter, there’s a magnificent 20 foot tall bouquet of flowers.  Beyond that, the place goes almost dark.  It’s quite melancholic or what the Europeans call “lugubrious”.  In several places you need a coal miner’s helmet.  This is bizarre in a flower exhibit, and, furthermore, it is ironic that both the amateur competition and sales booth areas are very well lit, and the crowd was moving to them like moths.

An operatic duo began howling in the dreadful acoustics so I retreated to the outermost edges where the aforementioned amateur Victorian-style indoor-plant competitions were displayed on the simple judging benches.  This was a pleasant contrast as well as a bit of a relief.  The various plant clubs and societies do an excellent job working with the fine folks at PHS growing and showing an astonishingly wide range of cacti, euphorbias, orchids, primulas and countless others.  This is an excellent feature of the show, and I only wished it was twice as big..  One special highlight was to see the “Batman Begins” inspiration for the magic Himalayan flower that alters Christian Bale.  It’s a little gentian with a haunting blue flower.  (There are not enough gentians in the world.)  This timelessly classic exhibition space is the Westminster Dog Show trot-run of potted ornamental horticulture.

Complaints?  If you’re going to have an Italian-themed show in Philadelphia, you’d do well to include a homage to Frank Sinatra.  This is the only city in the world that broadcasts 5 hours of Ol’ Blue Eyes every week, and has done for 30 years.  Also, “doo-wop” was cradled if not born here, mostly by Italians.  A bit of informality was wanted.  Also, no Italian supermodels, male or female, which was a tragedy.  The glamour of flowers, the romance of gardens, the famous heritage of Roman beauty . . . and no supermodels?  America without baseball?  Texas with no cowboys?  A picnic without sweet corn? “Bella Italia” with no bellas?  Besides a couple of marble statues and an insipid painting, there were no classic beauties to be seen.

This “missing Venus”, so to speak, was a bit too obvious, at least to me.  Maybe I’m obsessed.  Venus, a.k.a. Aphrodite, Ishtar and so on, remains much loved in Italy.  They’re more obsessed than I am.  In some ways she defines Italy:  patroness or goddess of Eros, the energy that spurs human passions.  Venus ruled with her physical beauty.  Perhaps few know also that she calmed the waters of the sea, thus making her a sailor’s favorite.  The mermaid on the old sailing ship’s prows reminds us of her.  Indeed, love has a calming effect, reordering things here and there so that peace might return, as the ships find their way back to port.

If there was an equivalent to Venus at the show, at least in terms of providing a relaxing or calming tranquility, it was the small but welcome Ikebana exhibit.  The Oriental aesthetic it provided was the sole counterpoint to the gobbling overkill of the rest of the show.  Asian art is a careful, simple human gesture—a brief moment that “appears” in the world—as contrasted to the ideal “recreation of the world” in Western art.  This is a huge difference, and in stark display at this attractive exhibit.  Check it out.  Circulate through the show and take in each exhibit—what’s the point, social statement, etc. and then go to “Okenobo” in the section where the amateur societies are featured.  The relief is palpable, like a washcloth to the forehead. The eyes relax immediately.  Similarly, Chinese painters don’t busily fill up a stretched canvas with the world.  Rather, they just place a daub here and another there, suggesting a moment of human presence in time.  They’re content with their flicker in eternity.

Finally, I can understand avoiding the “Rocky” clichés and even eschewing the pizza garden, so to speak, but I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend the absence of the tomato, one of Italy’s great contributions to horticulture.  True, the Aztecs created the cultivated tomato, but it was Italy that popularized it and sent it around the world.  Granted, I have a vested interest as CEO of Burpee. But it’s the most popular vegetable in the home garden and as Italian as garlic.  Italians literally invented modern European cuisine—much of it with vegetables—yet this tremendously important aspect of its culture was missing at the show.

But at least the Vespa dealership had a fleet of sharp looking 2009 models—Italian design at its best.  I’d look odd on one—a bit like Louis Prima on a tricycle—but it would still be fun.  There was a Colavita stand nearby that was selling Umbrian extra virgin olive oil—by far the best—for $8.00 for two 17 oz. bottles.  One of these normally goes for $9-10.00.  WOW.

You can’t have it all.  But, if you’re a gardener or even an interested passerby,  the 2009 Philadelphia Flower show comes fairly close.

I just wish they’d work out the lighting.

P.S.  I’ll be speaking again on The Money Garden at 1:00 P.M. Wednesday, March 4, and 1:00 P.M. Saturday, March 7th.

P.S.S.  The annuals and perennials at the show were especially well grown this year by our friends at Meadow Brook Farm.

MIDSUMMER MIXES

We’re proposing planting varieties both of edibles and ornamentals in a relatively tight space, so that “the lambs will lie down with lions”. Create a design for these midsummer, or hot climate cultivars of vegetables, herbs, perennials and shrubs, annuals and small fruit. They’re selected for their tidiness and harmony when planted “ensemble”. Paradise in your front, back and side yards. Here’s the line-up of hot stuff:

“Tres bien ensemble.”

P.S. I shall be speaking on Monday, March 2, at 2:30 P.M. at the Philadelphia Flower Show. Subject is “Success In The Money Garden” with tips on the most productive vegetable varieties. Attendance is free with show admission. Please see www.theflowershow.com

 “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
-Psalm 34/35

When I visited rural Pakistan in 2003, I noticed that there were very few overweight people.  On the contrary, most were skinny, including the elderly.  At first I thought I was seeing the effects of poverty.  Then I learned from NGO officials that the average rural diet was normal and adequate.  What was this “average diet”?

Fifteen hundred calories per day per person, which is about half that of most industrial nations in the west and less than half the US average. Yet most folks walked everywhere and worked at physical jobs.

A few bags of flour, rice and lentils; a large tin of cooking oil; some dried fish meal; seasonings and spices; some nice looking locally grown vegetables (tomatoes, greens, eggplant, squash and onions); and an occasional portion of chicken or lamb—these comprised the household larder.  Fried bread and other sweets or snacks might be included on a trip to town.

I was surprised to find that life expectancy was not so different from ours:  a decade or so less, or mid 60s versus late 70s.  However, infant mortality is very high by comparison, mainly because of livestock parasites rather than hunger or malnutrition.  Perhaps that fluked the results; I saw many elderly.  Water was precious more or less everywhere.

In other words, these people are tough.  No one was lounging around.  I conjectured that the concept of “junk food” was incomprehensible.  Few smoke and I saw no one drink.  Their world is family, village, town—or what we might insensitively call “tribe”—all resting in the context of the Islamic faith.  The mosque is the sign of civilization, just like our church steeple.

Needless to say, there was little that I, for one, could describe as dynamic, few signs of change, and none of modernity.  The preservation of stability and tradition is not merely intentional, it is sacred.  There is no crime as we know it, although I could not be sure.  There seemed to be none.  I asked, and everyone was more or less surprised by the question.  Granted, society there is militarized.  However, it seemed that the soldiers are what we call police.  Also, the rights and roles of women are entirely different and at odds with our notions.

Nevertheless, on reflection—and conscious of my gender—I thought that most rural areas of the US were not profoundly different.  Besides the role of women, the only difference was everyone’s physical health, which brings me to “Paring Back”.  We’re suffering an obesity epidemic.

Recently I saw a web article describing how dementia in the elderly might be delayed merely by making a substantial reduction in food consumption.  This squares with the Harvard study from the 1960s that I mentioned in an earlier blog, which stated that, except for the passage of time, caloric intake is the single greatest cause of death.

Therefore, we might reconsider our perspective on food.  At a wedding last fall, I noticed that the food wasn’t anything other than a decorative prop—the fact that we ate it was secondary.  Much of it had symbolic value.  So why shouldn’t all adult food be mostly ritual?

We might better view daily intake the same way that we view the consumption of medicine.  Truly, for adults, food functions as a medicine.  We have to replace cells, as well as stay warm, but the growth phase is long over.  (Water and fiber are a different story.)  This is probably why, in the contemporary West, rich food kills us.  It should be seen as a premium luxury in adulthood, and enjoyed as such, much the way I have seen the Japanese do.

“Paring back” means that, while realizing that the steady consumption of food is the original human comfort, it also carries risk.  In infancy and childhood, food has an essential reason; a baby has no illusions about his hunger.  Much later in life, this hunger attains a largely psychological meaning.  As such, it should be studied and understood.

Therefore, just as reading becomes a pleasure in adulthood rather than the necessity it is in childhood, so dining becomes purely pleasurable.  The ancients realized this when they made gluttony a sin—it actually kills you.

Since the vegetable world provides such a range of flavors—from the jolting flavor of fennel to the howling burn of habanero pepper.  Also, it is capable of great subtlety, and for this we have the highly overlooked and underpraised crisphead lettuce, of which Burpee’s Iceberg is the original.  Its taste is delightful, despite its reputation.  Only store bought lettuce suffers from being picked too early.  Iceberg’s delicate sweetness should appeal to all lovers of subtle flavor and texture, such as devotees of sushi and other mild world cuisine.

My point is that we need not lose flavor and interest while “paring back”.  The meaty taste and texture of many dried beans as well as seitan (sautéed or fried wheat gluten) substitute marvelously for meats and eggs.  Focus on nutrition, reduce calories and you’ll live longer and less expensively, without making as great a dent in your lifestyle as you might think.

Solomon was a great king, but not a gardener. It turns out that, after all, there is an infinitude of new things under the sun. This is the essence of innovation and evolution, and the antithesis of tradition and the status quo. Thus, Darwin was, perhaps, the truest of all prophets. While I’ll never stand in the company of Darwin, much less Solomon, I’d be quite comfortable with—of all people—the newest investor in The New York Times and Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helú. In fact, he quotes what I would call “Burpee scripture”:

Normally an excellent wordsmith, President Obama would do well to take a page from the gospel of Slim Helú and think “seed” rather than “stimulus”. Darwin escaped the mechanistic “stimulus and response” world of early 19th century science for the coastal islands of South America. In that laboratory—the vast unexplored horizons of the New World—there were no scientific orthodoxies, bloodless political or economic philosophies, and endless “zero-sum games” of give and take. There was only regeneration, rebirth, genetic flow and evolutionary flourish. Duplicate dollars make no more sense—or growth—than duplicate genes. Let the financial dinosaurs go extinct, and let the economic chips fall.

For example, a “survivor” seed grows from a 1-inch nut to a 50-foot tree. Thus, in the successful home garden, one corn seed becomes 1,000 more; a tiny speck turns into 35 pounds of tomatoes. Therefore, utilizing Burpee’s new Money Garden, one dollar becomes 25, given a bit of humus, a spot of compost, a dozen hours of tending and two months of sunshine—a drop in the hole in the bucket of our recent economic history. Is not “seed” a worthy paradigm?

The word stimulus fails to stimulate. To the extent it conjures any image whatever, one envisions a god-like doctor delivering a jolt of stimulus to a comatose patient, eliciting the odd spasmodic jerk. If unresponsive, the latter is pronounced dead. This is entirely the wrong metaphor for the dynamics of the economy. Hardly an inert body, our economy is in fact a complex ecosystem—a garden, if you will—of sellers, buyers, investors, borrowers, lenders, winners, losers, supply and demand.

Far from mere cause/effect or “stimulus/response”, the economy is the epitome of “interactive”, as is the garden. Invest for growth doesn’t mean “stimulate”—rather, it means “seed” and “feed”; “tend” and “train” into fruition and harvest. Mr. Obama and his advisers are not, I suspect, gardeners, and, perhaps, fail therefore to grasp either the metaphor or the reality of what is meant by growth in business or markets.

A gardener isn’t a doctor, just as seed isn’t stimuli. Rather, we the people are, all of us, sunlight. All we need are the seeds of knowledge and education, the nutrients of technology, time and patient attention to detail, and the gardens of our labor will grow, ripen and bear much fruit. Instant gratification doesn’t gratify, and the stimulus doesn’t stimulate. On the other hand, seeds—in reality and metaphor—are the beginning as well as the end, the alpha and omega, a link between the past and the future.

Should the President adopt a “seed” metaphor, he needs to remember not to “sow from the center”. Gardens are like the communities of America—not a European style, monocultural monarchy of cultivars, but a broad diversity of geography, climate, customs and ethnicities. Our US gardens are more Noah’s Ark than Eden; more backyard garden than White House garden. As opposed to the Education or Health and Human Services departments—with their feckless efforts to instill or “stimulate” best practices—the new administration must first identify the proper plants for each zone, so to speak. In the garden you need to be close to the ground. To do that, talk to the local gardeners, to avoid the timeless scenario of the cagey farmer who outfoxes the sophisticated city slicker. Fertilize Main Street, not Wall Street.

Once he opens the gate of the American garden, the President might, like Carlos Slim Helù, discover something “new under the sun,” and an innovative economy shall become fruitful and multiply.

Folks have asked, “How can I mix annuals, perennials, vegetables and herbs together in one space?”  The answer depends on your zone, the time of year you wish to enjoy your garden and the particular plants you prefer.  The secret is spacing things out so you can reach in and harvest the vegetables and herbs without disturbing the showy annuals and herbaceous perennials.  Shrubs take care of themselves, and you only need to mind their position and spacing so the taller ones don’t block the sun from the shorter plants.

This careful space allocation process is the essence of garden design.  A potager is a classic form of small, mixed-use vegetable plots. Well-edged, they blend nicely with perennials and annuals, depending on your taste.  The lambs lie down with the lions, so to speak. Play around. Here is a cool climate/season plan, recommended by Heronswood’s Research Director Grace Romero and horticulturist Bill Rein.  We’ll post midsummer and late summer/early fall in parts 2 and 3.

I find it surprising when it’s said that people lost their money with Bernard Madoff.  Bernie Madoff didn’t lose their money—to do that he would have had to invest it—he found their money.  There’s a big difference.

It gets me thinking about Belgian dentists.  Belgian dentists?  Investment bankers have long used Belgian dentists as the ultimate test of a corporate bond offering.  The belief is that of all investors the Belgian dentist is the most prudent.  He or she will only invest if the terms are right, the bond issuer of stainless repute and the rating triple A.  We can assume that, for the Belgian dentist, taking a flier with the likes of Bernard Madoff would have all the allure of a rotten incisor.

Where does the prudent investor look today?  We pull up our computer screens and gaze at our portfolios with ever-increasing dismay.  Guided by our broker or investment counselor, we’ve parlayed our investments in the prescribed ways.  We’ve dutifully divvied up our stocks among consumer goods, industrials, utilities, high tech, transportation, blue chip and growth stocks; we have the requisite investments in index funds, government bonds and real estate.  And you know what?  It all looks like a rifled drawer.

So you’re asking yourself:  Where is the smart money going today?  Where do we look for yields?  Where is the high-growth?  The answer is close at hand:  right in your own backyard, in fact.

Here is an investment sector that you can actually understand, and which produces tangible results—results you can sink your teeth into—offering rewards that will put food on your table and a smile on your face.  Not to tilt at windmills, but investments don’t come any greener than this.

A backyard garden of modest size can deliver a return on investment that is exceptional by any standard—ranging right up to 20,000 percent.  Here is an elephantine return that dwarfs the lilliputian 18 percent or so promised by Bernie Madoff, and it’s the real deal.  It doesn’t get any more real, in fact.  Nor more helpful for a family of four.

The numbers speak for themselves.  For starters, let’s talk tomatoes.

A single tomato plant will, over the course of the summer, yield up to 40 medium to large fruit.  Your local supermarket is now selling tomatoes for 75 cents to a dollar each, so figure your single tomato plant’s yield, in dollar terms, is 30 dollars to 40 dollars per season.

A seed packet contains, say 25 guaranteed seeds out of 30 total.  Place the average at 35 dollars, multiply it times 25, and you get eight hundred seventy five dollars worth of store bought tomatoes from a seed packet that retails for 3 to 4 dollars.  Your return on investment?  Better than 200 to 1 or 20,000 percent.

The skeptic—and who isn’t these days?—has questions.  What about the money I spend on fertilizer?  What if tomatoes are on sale this week?  You’re still looking at an incredible level of savings.  If tomatoes go on sale for 50 cents each, your return on your investment dollar ratio is still 1:125 or 12,500%.  And not only do you reap the financial reward, you can sauté, it, roast it, or eat it raw.  Try doing that with a share of Lehman Brothers.  (No, don’t.)

Keep this in mind:  these are succulent, juicy, fragrant just-picked tomatoes worthy of a gourmet—light-years away from those forlorn, flavorless tomato wannabees you see in your grocer’s produce department.

Another high-growth sector:  peas.  Still skeptical?  All we are saying is:  Give peas a chance.

Here we go.  A single Sugar Snap Pea plant should yield at least a pound of peas per season, equal to 90 to 100 pods.  Buy them at the supermarket and you pay $3.50 to $4.00 a pound, or $3.75 a pound on average.

A packet of 150 snap pea seeds retails for around $1.50, or a penny a seed.  However, they get “thinned” by 2/3, so we’re talking 50 vines for 3 cents apiece.  Fifty vines yield fifty pounds of peas that would set you back $3.75 a pound at your grocer.  So, a $1.50 packet of seed yields $187.50 worth of sugar snap peas.  Allowing for fencing, the bottom line is an ROI of better than 100 to one.

Are you a bean-counter?  Green snap beans yield a return of 1:90, or 1:80, depending on the bean.  Haricot verts, on the other hand, deliver a return of merely 40 to 1.  We’ll say it again:  we’re talking a 40 to 1 return.

Conservative investor, looking for real and tangible returns?  Grow your assets at home.  Speculative investor, looking for a big payday?  Doff your pinstripes, slip into your jeans, and get into your garden.  Think of seeds as God’s microchip, and this is the ultimate tech stock.  Green investor, looking to both make money and save the planet?  Hop into your Birkenstocks, and join Mother Nature in the tomato patch.

Which brings us back to the Belgian dentist, that paragon of investing prudence.  What do you think Belgian dentists are investing in today?  We don’t have the slightest idea.  But we’ll hazard a guess though.  Two words:  Brussels Sprouts.

A hot topic recently was the First Pooch. The media roiled with speculation: what kind of dog would the President-elect’s family choose? The President-to-be told the press that the family dog would likely come from an animal shelter, adding, “It will probably be a mutt—like me.”

To some, calling oneself a “mutt” smacks of self-deprecation. It shouldn’t. Being a mutt, genetically speaking, is a badge of honor. Whether, like the President, you come from a mixed race parentage, or are of differing ethnicities, you are a hybrid—and being a hybrid has its privileges.

As a veteran plant breeder, I am well acquainted with hybrid vigor, the naturally occurring genetic enhancement achieved by combining the unique virtues of diverse parents in the offspring. The resulting hybrid’s superiority comes from the repression of recessive traits from one parent by the dominant traits from the other—the best of both worlds.

Of course, every hybrid does not have a triumphant result. The actress Sarah Bernhardt once mused to George Bernard Shaw, “Imagine we had a child, and it had my looks and your brain.” Shaw replied, “Yes, but imagine if it had your brain and my looks.”

And yes, not all purebreds are high-strung, thin-blooded and Velcro for every passing virus. If you are an AKC champion whippet, or a WASP who proudly traces your lineage to the Magna Carta, I salute you.

 “Te salud, Don Corleone.”

                                                                                               (Though to the WASP I’d point out that Anglo-Saxon is itself a hybrid, Protestantism a Teutonic variant of Catholicism, and whiteness a genetic variation as well, one suitable for northern climes with relatively little sunlight.)

The phenomenon of hybrid vigor (heterosis is the technical term) is a key factor in all plant and animal breeding—whether you’re talking tulips or thoroughbred racehorses. It’s vital. As management seer Peter Drucker notes, “Few knowledge-based innovations in this century [20th] have benefited humanity more than the hybridization of seeds and livestock.”

However, the President is not merely a hybrid. Recombinant thinking is reflected in his domestic politics, foreign policy and management style. For his cabinet, he has assembled a group of strong personalities with diverse outlooks, including three Republicans, often compared to President Lincoln’s “team of rivals.” During the presidential primary, he invoked Ronald Reagan as a Presidential role model, drawing the wrath of his Democratic opponents and party diehards. In foreign affairs, he consistently emphasizes dialogue, even with countries that oppose us.

No president in memory has so emphatically endorsed looking beyond ideology and party labels in crafting policy, surprising both his supporters and his detractors. Asking Megachurch pastor Rick Warren to give the opening prayer at his inauguration is a striking example.

In my opinion, the President clearly grasps the importance of combining—or crossing, to use the genetic term—disparate ideas and ideologies.  He’s not merely thinking strategically, but indeed bespeaking the essence of evolution and creativity.  I pray that he’s as competent as he seems.

Researchers into the nature of creativity find that the ability to combine and recombine seemingly unrelated elements is the magic that makes 1 + 1 = 3.

Hybridism is an indispensable catalyst in the arts, ideas and sciences. You can likely trace all innovations to the merger of two contrasting, or even opposing ideas. Where you see a new paradigm, conceptual breakthrough or creative revolution, the 1 + 1 = 3 equation is at work.

In the chemistry of human attraction, we often see the attraction of opposites. Plato called it “the desire and pursuit of the whole.” We seek the person who will, in a sense, complement and complete us. Hybridism runs through our collective unconscious as well. In mythology we see creatures that unite traits of different animals: the griffon (with the head and wings of an eagle and a lion’s body), the centaur (a horse with a human body, legs and arms) and the faun (a human with a goat’s ears, legs and tail).

In technology, Drucker sees hybrid knowledge in the development of hybrid corn—the convergence of the work of Michigan plant breeder William J. Beal, who discovered hybrid vigor in the 1880s, and the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s genetics by the Dutch biologist Hugo de Vries. The Wright Brothers’ airplane represents the cross-linking of the gasoline engine and mathematical aerodynamics. That ubiquitous thing we call “mass communications” is a hybrid of information and advertising brought about by the likes of newspaper barons William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer and Adolf Ochs. Today these convergences seem altogether inevitable and inextricable.

The arts is a garden overflowing with striking hybrids, where two dissimilar ingredients are fused to spectacular and enduring effect. The results don’t appear anomalous, but predestined: not an end, but a new beginning. Their bloom does not fade.

Picasso mated primitive African art to modern art; Stravinsky crossbred Russian folk dances with western classical music. Taking a cue from the philosopher Henri Bergson, Virginia Woolf merged stream-of-consciousness into dazzling fiction. Oscar Wilde married oriental paradox to the drawing-room comedy. The poet Ezra Pound was a cross-breeder of styles par excellence, drawing on everything from Provencal ballads to Chinese poetry.

I look forward to seeing the results of the President’s many ideological out-crossings.  I wish him success.  And I can’t wait to see the first mutt.  I’ll bet it’s a beauty.

Much has been written about a “White House garden” even to the absurd extent of tearing up the front lawn and planting vegetables and herbs—a giant kitchen garden.  Ghastly.  While I sympathize with the proponents, I disagree with their tactics, as well as over zealousness.  In short, they’re not thinking like gardeners.

If they wish for a “garden agenda” to be high on President Obama’s list of priorities, they should start with an evaluation of the status quo.  The White House is, first and foremost, a fish bowl.  No one is going to roll up his sleeves and “return to the land” on that piece of real estate.  Also, First Lady Laura Bush had a rooftop vegetable garden (she’s a big gardener).  The Obamas would do well to keep it going and learn from the chef or whoever else helped Laura tend it.

The second phase of a realistic garden agenda would be to focus on Camp David.  I predict Obama will spend much time there.  It’s got several nice spots where he can be alone and work out his gardening likes, dislikes, solutions, techniques, etc., in private, as the rest of us do when we start out.

Gardens—and especially vegetable plots—are practiced in solitude and peace, as well as private.  I remember making mistakes as a kid and thanking the Lord that no one could see them.  Vegetable gardens are a bit like car garage fix-it spaces.  You work on that old baby inside until she’s ready to be seen.  Maybe.  I have friends who work on their cars out front, but they’re living in rural areas, where “front” has very little meaning.

Actually a fishing camp, Camp David probably has rocky soil, so amending it would be the first project.  Then, in a sunny spot, he and Mrs. Obama could cultivate a small patch at first, especially so the daughters may enjoy it. By 2010, a larger garden would evolve. Soon it would supplement weekend meals for not only the first family but also the entourage, visitors and staff.

The development of a Camp David garden would generate the sort of “buy in” a White House garden would never do.  Then, during 2011 or 2012 an appropriate design could be made and a family garden installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  It would be a natural extension of what they learned at Camp David.  Not only would the photo op be more timely (he has enough to think about now) but the whole project would be more authentic. 

Having already created a garden at Camp David (“Michelle’s Garden”?), the President and his family would now, with the White House garden, be sharing their enthusiasm with the public.

I’d encourage the President to take this low-key approach.  The nation’s gardeners wish him well.

Here’s a set piece, so to speak, written for the newspapers.  The title refers to Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, a fashionable book in my college years, and is a pun suggested by my friend, Fayette Hickox.  It was about the coming drastic changes wrought by the technological advances of the 60s, and had an apocalyptic quality to it.  However, it seemed to me alarmist—everything was “special”—which, of course, results in nothing being special.

“FUTURE CHIC”

The future is a bit inscrutable.  If we look at it up close, it has a way of becoming the present, and whizzing right past us like a kid on a skateboard.

Standing back, trying to get a broader view, we seem to be staring at a blank slate.  And a very large blank slate the future is, stretching into infinity in silence.  It doesn’t give up its secrets, nor invite us in.  We can’t even get on the guest list.  The future is like Greta Garbo, telling us, in effect, “I vant to be alone”.

The past is another matter.  If the future is Garbo, the past is Britney Spears.  Scenes from history dangle before us vividly, like baubles on a charm bracelet.

(Garbo—now she was special.  She didn’t seduce or even radiate so much as propagate light with a beauty more dazzling than the sun.  We sat in the movie theaters and grew the fungal plants that inhabit the souls of movie audiences.)

Archaic scenes unfold before us as if projected by a magic lantern.  Over here the pyramids, currently under construction; knights, in shining armor, prepare to joust; Columbus sailing the ocean blue; Marie Antoinette as a milkmaid; Saint Francis preaching to a congregation of animals; a caveman rubbing together sticks to create fire; a Chinese Empress with her coterie of eunuchs.  The past is an endless spectacle; the future doesn’t offer so much as a postcard.

Such visions of the future we can conjure are a pastiche of Jules Verne, Brave New World, “Bladerunner” and the Jetsons—picturesque but scarcely a roadmap of the not-yet. It seems that we should be able to think our way into the future.  After all, what’s the difference between the past and the future, other than this moment? “It’s an odd sort of memory that only looks backward,” says Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

The poor visibility afforded by the future is no barrier to the prophets among us.  Using a set of tools that includes stars, birds’ entrails, dreams, crystal balls, tea leaves and divine confidences, these seers have a backstage pass into the sanctum of the future.  They turn the question mark of the future into a gaudy chorus line of exclamation marks!!!

Prophets of today foresee a grim tomorrow.  Their visions are anything but paradisiacal.  They see the future not as a promising beginning but an ignoble end.  Dark, apocalyptic visions have never had it so good.  As at a cosmic buffet, you can select the end of the world that is most to your taste.  However, to bring out its full flavor, sprinkle with a grain of salt.

Today’s apocalyse menu includes a meteorite obliterating the planet, nuclear disaster, holy war, total economic collapse, global warming and the Rapture.

The psychics, preachers and gurus who make these prognostications always find a ready flock of believers, their bags packed and ready for doomsday.

One can see the appeal for the Doomsday Believers.  With a single stroke you can bundle all of life’s perils and uncertainties into a single oblivious package.  Call it “doubt consolidation”:

The flipside of the Apocalypse is … Paradise.  In this case, the future is immortality—an “everlasting” garden where no one hungers.  Whether Arcadia, Elysium, Utopia or Eden, paradises are invariably portrayed as vegetable gardens and pastures filled with game.  Apocalypses are primarily famines.  Get food right, and you’ve got at least “Paradise and Lunch”, as Ry Cooder nicely puts it.

Have no fear, dear readers, these apocalyptic visions too shall pass.  Armageddons come and go.  Meanwhile, you can find us in the paradise that is our garden.

The end of the world has a bright future.  I think I see it growing now.

I heard Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak talk about research a few days ago.  In the anxiety surrounding the retirement of Steve Jobs, he responded to the reporter’s query about the possible uncertainties of new product timelines:

“Oh, everyone at Apple works very far in advance—way into the future—like 1 to 1½ years!”

Apparently, agriculture and horticulture are rocket science compared to software research.  In fact, animal and plant breeders may have been the very first scientific researchers.

“We need more docile cows that won’t run away—can we breed them for shorter legs?”

“Whoa—it’s freezing!  We need sheep with longer rather than shorter hair—where are those really ugly long-hairs?”

Imagine the first food testers.  “Oops, it looks like that berry is fatal.  What about the one over there?”  They probably used animals first, or so one would hope.  Probably the long-legged and shorthaired ones.

Hybridization—the selective breeding of plants and animals for desirable traits—is mankind’s original, pre-manufacturing creative act.  The mere process of choosing one group of plants over another—by replanting the seeds from one group, thus enabling it to thrive over the other—results in these new plants becoming a distinct “breed” or domesticated race.  No factory required.  New age gurus like Paul Hawken and Bill McDonough are neither “new” nor especially guru-like.  The ancient remains the avant-garde.

It’s astonishing to consider how long plant breeding takes, compared to the freeze-dried, instantly prepared, wizardly hi-tech creations of today.  On the one hand, changes and variations occur quickly in plants, considering that they are natural phenomena.  Change is built in, like a mechanical spring.  Yet the annual cycle dominates breeding in the temperate zones.  Thus, most genetic research takes many years, depending on the genus as well as the breeder’s ability.  I know a cherry breeder who is scheduled to release later in her career a new cultivar that her PhD adviser began working on when he was her age—over 60 years for a single new introduction from two of the world’s best cherry breeders.

A new pot cyclamen averages 10 years of constant attention, while the tuberous-rooted begonia takes about 12 years.  On the more optimistic end, an experimental pansy breeder can introduce a new cultivar in about 3 to 4 years.  Tomatoes average 4 to 5 years, bell peppers 5 to 6 years and cucumbers and squash 7 to 8 years.  Our recent Hellebores took 13 years—from the first selections in 1993 to the introductions in 2006.  (Yet, consider how inexpensive flowers and vegetables are.)

Therefore, most, if not all, breeding companies try to cut these expensive product development cycles in half by using nurseries in the southern hemisphere to double up generations per year.  They “grow out” selections every six instead of twelve months—and spend a lot of time flying back and forth to Peru, Chile, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

So when Mr. Wozniak assured reporters that Apple would likely sail smoothly with 1-2 year new product development horizons, he reminded me of the profound genius and patience that go into plant breeding.  Perhaps the hi-tech folks could learn from the horticultural sciences.