links: a thoughtful video, beginner blunders, more

MORE RAIN THE LAST WEEK MEANS a happier landscape, and also more links to share, since I sat sidelined, waiting for breaks in the action to go out and tidy up–or take pictures of a fiery doublefile Viburnum leaf, above, and whatever else is still smoldering. From a tender video of one man’s 40-year garden-writing career, to the story of a “seed library” up in my neck of the woods, to beginner blunders and the impact of gardening on the restaurant business (think: big), the latest digital harvest:The Thoughtful GardenerAA READER SENT NEWS of the understated but powerful video from garden writer Robin Lane Fox of “The Financial Times,” who recently marked 40 years at his enviable post.

 I have never fed a badger Prozac, but beyond that small tactical difference in our takes on horticulture, I felt an immediate kinship with Lane Fox. I suspect you will, too.

Go over to the FT site to have a watch. (Fox’s column archive is here.

WHAT WAS YOUR WORST beginner-gardener mistake? (Mine was—is—always the equivalent of “her eyes are too big for her stomach,” as in taking on too much to handle.) A recent article on Planet Green by Colleen Vanderlinden cited 10 rookie blunders. One word on the whole notion of mistakes: I always tell audiences at lectures that “you have to grow it to know it,” which typically means killing something a couple of times, or at least watching it limp along awhile till you get the knack.

I prefer to think of my mistakes as simply practice sessions. I know Colleen agrees.