While researching Dr. Seuss the other day, I realized why this acacia tree on our street had so grabbed my attention back in November.
Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman was one of my favorite books as a child; I was always surprised by the dog party at the end. [Click here for the image.]
During one of my landscape design classes, another student recalled a lecture by a famous landscape artist (I think it was Martha Schartz) who said that the garden we really want is the one that reflects the places we knew before the age of five. I don’t know how accurate her paraphrase was, but the idea is something to think about. And the landscapes of our early years will have to include those we saw night after night in storybooks.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant. . . .
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
– Czeslaw Milosz, from “And Yet the Books“
Reblogged this on Inspiredweightloss.
I never realized that the end was always a surprise to you.
It was worth all those many times of reading it to you and your sibs before you could read it yourself. It’s really a special tree.
Mom
Well, there was a lot going on in the story. There was that whole sub-plot about the hats. . .
Reblogged this on finnegan2749.
I really like the garden being like what you knew before five. When I think of what I want in a garden, it is absolutely the gardens I know in the back of my grandparents’ home and the back of my home growing up.
Your last two blog posts have hit so close to home. For the last ten years or so, I have introduced many Dr. Seuss plants into my garden…their whimsical forms fascinate me. My beloved grand-daughter, Annie, loves GO DOG GO, and we have shared the reading several hundred times. (More than I care to count) She loves the fauna, dog lover that she is, and I love the flora. Thank you for your posts.
Becky and Francine: Thanks!
When I read profiles of gardens in glossy magazines, it’s interesting how many clients told the designer they were longing for something like their grandparents had.
[…] was still thinking about childhood books and landscape when I came across this drawing by Edward Gorey, which is quite funny (well, to […]