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One week ago Saturday, I stepped into a Story Garden. Immediately, like magic, roots grew down into the ground, connecting me to a rich substrata of writers, editors, agents, all with amazing stories to tell. As I wandered the Story Garden (known to some as the SCBWI Western Washington Writing and Illustrating for Children Conference) flowers of every sort shot up out of the ground at my very feet. I watched with amazement as one particularly bright colored blossom (Genus Lainius taylorus, fuschia petals, quite lovely) began to speak. Wondrous tales of a circus troupe within her very being, struggling to emerge, wove a spell around all of us in the Story Garden, prompting great excitement at the possibilities for each of us, ready to bring forth our own fruit.

As the day wore on, and we were watered, fertilized and shone upon by Master Gardeners Jay Asher, Peter Brown, Edward Necalsulmer IV, Jordan Brown, Lisa Graff, Paul Rodeen, Michael Bourret, Sara Crowe, and so many others--voila! We bore fruit. Many of us scurried to secret corners, to quickly capture those first buds of a new story, the tentative tendrils of a plot twist.

No garden is quite complete without a Garden Gnome, and by early afternoon, our very own gnome appeared (see above), cheering us on, giving bits of writing advice to each of us who captured him before he disappeared back into his own hidden garden, once again to write.

And now each of us have returned to our own secret gardens, treasuring all we brought back from that magical weekend, seeding our own stories to bloom in due time.

Watch our gardens grow!

Some new books about gardens and growing things.

My Friends the Flowers by William Lach, illustrated by Doug Kennedy. Abrams, 2010.

Marigold SCARES all the bugs
He  likes to make them run.
Sunflower's big happy face basks in the morning sun. 

A Garden of Opposites by Nancy Davis. Schwartz & Wade, 2009

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By: Janice Phelps Williams, on 4/24/2011
Blog: Appalachian Morning (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  travel, New Orleans, decorating with color, houses, gardens, Add a tag

This post continues our visit to New Orleans. Here are the posts related to our trip:

1) Wonderful Food and Restaurants
2) The French Quarter and Street Bands
3) The Garden District
4) Shopping, Books, and Miscellaneous
5) People and Animals

On our third day in New Orleans, we took a taxi from our hotel to the Garden District and embarked on a walking tour.

The area was originally developed between 1832 to 1900. It may be one of the best preserved collection of historic southern mansions in the United States. The 19th century origins of the Garden District illustrate wealthy newcomers building opulent structures based upon the prosperity of New Orleans in that era. (National Trust, 2006) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_District,_New_Orleans

The homes and yards were beautiful, and as a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let them speak for themselves.

After our walking tour of the Garden District, we stopped in at the local bookstore located in "The Rink" and purchased some books, which I'll list in a future post.
Throughout the neighborhood are beautiful large oak trees and a wide variety of other plants and flowers. Many of the homes have ornate fences and metalwork on the balconies as well as beautiful columns and architectural details. I also loved looking at the paint colors; some houses had subtle variations of colors and others were very bold in their use of color. And everywhere, beautiful trees!



0 Comments on New Orleans: The Garden District as of 1/1/1900

There used to be a beautiful garden on the corner of our road. Not the sort of cottagey, lush, chaotic garden I’d rather like myself but a traditional, rather formal combination of greensward and floribunda roses with a few tastefully placed specimen shrubs. There was also a gleaming penny farthing as a feature, incongruous but appealing, always delicately outlined with tiny fairy lights at Christmas.
The creator moved away last year and yesterday the new occupants committed an act of dire destruction. Diggers arrived and the entire garden had gone by 11am. Perhaps the owners are going to create something wonderful themselves. Judging by the number of huge white delivery sacks sagging in the wreckage, however, I suspect that they want something low maintenance – a parking lot, for example.
Far be it from me to decry progress or personal freedom of choice. The new owners clearly need something other than a formal garden and fair enough; it is their property. Nonetheless, I wept over the glorious rose bushes which I hope have at least reached the municipal composter and I find myself asking questions about our responsibility to the community in our public acts. That garden gave me great joy and I used to tell the creator so when he was out there tending it. He still lives locally so he will have the pain of seeing that his work has been destroyed. How much should we reign in our personal desires out of consideration for others? A big question. How much value should we put on that which already exists when it stands in the way of something new? It’s a question which town planners and developers constantly battle with and which Capability Brown and his sponsors didn’t seem to consider at all!
What has all this to do with children’s books?!
The other day I did one of my occasional reccies in Waterstones. What’s being promoted, what’s new, what haven’t I read that I should have etc etc. To be honest, I was appalled. There was nothing like the wide selection carried by my local independent. That’s normal but this time the range was even narrower than usual and the blocks of books by the usual suspects were vast. More shocking, in my opinion, was the increased shelf-space given over to the Snot and Bogey brigade. The desperation to publish books that boys will read is getting alarming. Humour revolves around poo and flatulence (we now have the adventures of a farting dog, for goodness sake!) and history is degenerating into pisstory. I’ve recently had a short fictionalised biography of Elizabeth 1st published. ('Elizabeth 1st - The Story of the Last Tudor Queen') Imagine my delight at my most recent school visit when I was approached by a child who wanted to ask a question about it. And the question? Was it true that Elizabeth 1st had used the first toilet ever? Elizabeth 1st must be one of the most formidable personalities our national history offers – and a child’s interest has somehow been reduced to where she went to the loo!
It seems to me that what happened to my neighbour’s garden is happening to children’s literature. In pursuing current agendas (getting boys to read at any cost, for example) we’re trashing a great tradition. I think of the heritage that lies behind the early readers that are being churned out now and I’m asking questions. I’m a left-wing, liberal, armchair revolutionary but I’m also a Christian (albeit a heretical one!) and I’m thinking about what it says in Philippians 4: 8 ...’whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excelle

Water Weed Wait by Edith Hope Fine and Angela Demos Halpin, illustraed by Colleen Madden. Tricycle, 2010  (review copy provided by the publisher)

School gardens are often started but tend to languish despite the best of intentions of teachers, students and parents.  This book might encourage a community to try again.
The children at the Pepper Lane Elementary are inspired by a visit from Miss Marigold, the garden lady to start a garden at their school. They work together with help from adults. Even Mr. Barkley, the school's cranky neighbor, lends his gardening expertise.  Building a garden is hard work.  Ground must be cleared and prepared then seeds are planted and watered.  It takes patience to wait for vegetables to grow and flowers to bloom but their efforts are rewarded and celebrated at the end.  Suggestions for starting a school garden are shared.


A Garden for Pig written by Kathryn K. Thursman, illustrated by Lindsay Ward, Kane Miller, 2010

Pig lives on an apple farm.  His owner feeds him every kind of apple delicacy but Pig is tired of apples and longs for the vegetables growing in a nearby garden.  When Pig manages to get into the garden he is in heaven.  He discovers a passion for squash.  When Mrs. Pippins discovers him in the garden, she secures him in his muddy pig pen and he cannot escape.  He prepares the ground in his pen for planting and "passes" the seeds from the squash he ate.  He patiently waits and before long has his own squash garden.   Thursman follows the story with two pages of organic gardening tips.  Illustrator, Ward's apple trees are filled with apples and text from apple recipes. Pig's method for planting his seeds is ve