The Cherry Tree Dilemma: Mindfulness, Complexity and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

  In attachment blossoms fall, in aversion weeds spread. Dogen, Genjo Koan (1233 CE) Smack in the middle of the back yard is a non-native, very short tree that, when I moved in, looked like a dwarf, would-be weeping willow. Scraggly, neglected, it stood just over five feet high, and its branches hung down to the ground all around. It took up a fair amount of space; of course nothing grew in its shade. I did recognize it: a weeping cherry—not a naturally grown specimen of one of the beautiful Japanese varieties, but a “frankentree,” which, as Brian Funk of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has written, “are the flowering cherries on sale at home improvement stores” that “look like mops, or umbrellas, or octopus trees.” They are created when “weeping cherry branches… are grafted onto a straight trunk that was cut off at five feet tall.”  Well yes, exactly. Not only was it ungainly, but: what was the point of its existence, and what good would it do?  I mentally tagged it for rem...

A New Domain

I have switched to a new URL: www.ecologicalgardening.net. While the posts and other functions (except blogroll) have transitioned, the folks at Google say it will take a couple of days for old comments to show up. New comments work just fine. (Just in case you're wondering why a comment made yesterday doesn't appear.)

Update: comments have now appeared, but still waiting on blogroll.

Comments