Talking about a ‘to do’ list is an easy way to kill a gardener’s creativity, but it’s easy to regain inspiration – just get outdoors
Early autumn is a time for netting ponds, raking leaves and cleaning out sheds – or so much of the narrative of horticultural media goes. Yet as a botanist with a special interest in how people communicate and learn about plants, I find the way we often talk about gardening as an art form fascinatingly weird. I mean, to the uninitiated it must sound an awful lot like outdoor tidying up. A sort of never-ending series of messy chores, often in less than ideal weather, and as much as it pains me to say it, I can see why so many people would rather do anything else with their time.
Can you imagine if, for example, the people of food media talked about their passion in a similar way? “Right now is the perfect time to defrost your freezer, reorganise your spice rack and tidy your tin cupboard.” There’d be very little talk about food as a creative art form, an outlet for self-expression, a catalyst for social interaction or an essential part of wellbeing – just lots of advice on the exact angle at which to sift flour and how to load the dishwasher.
Continue reading...from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2nCmJrp
via IFTTT
