Past, Present, Plants.
Growing up, or growing old, I don’t know which it is anymore - at any rate, more years, for me, has meant more reflection. How did I get here, and when did my memory turn Green?
The first plant I knew by name was an African violet. My mother had (and still has) the ability to keep those babies blooming for months on end. Memories of brushing the fuzzy leaves with my fingertips pop into my head every time I see one. Years later, I’d learn the violets are endemic to the tropical mountains of East Africa, growing out of cliff-sides in a cloud forest environment.
It was the pre-internet era of the 90’s and early 2000’s in Dallas TX, and we didn’t really have “outdoor activities” besides organized sports. There are no forests, there are no rivers (no, I don’t count the Trinity) - this is an urban metroplex of over six million people. You’ve probably heard me say “all there is to do in Dallas is eat, drink, and shop”, which as an adult visiting is wonderful! But as children, it meant we used our imaginations a lot.
My friend Caroline and I liked to make “witches’ potions” in the play house log cabin my mom won in a raffle at my elementary school’s field day. Caroline and I had been eyeing this one purple flowering plant down the street from my house that smelled sweet and looked like delicate lavender grapes. How beautiful it would be in one of our concoctions! One afternoon, we snuck into the down-the-street neighbor’s side yard and absolutely decimated the wisteria vine that was growing 40-feet up, down, and all over their fence. The blooms were incredible, I can still smell them. After an hour or so, we took our haul back to my house and stuffed the wisteria blossoms into mason jars full of water and placed them on wooden shelves in our child-size log cabin. The jars of flowers were gorgeous, and exactly what we intended to make. The adults on the block had apparently all gone out to dinner that night, and when my parents returned, they had to respond to an angry voice message on the answering machine from the neighbors regarding our theft of their prized wisteria. I have no regrets and would do it again. The vision of the wisteria vine on their fence still lives in my mind, rent-free.
Memories of the cypress trees on our road-verge that we would climb to reach the blue-green seed pods that looked like a Hadean Period Earth with their sticky, oozy sap melting out of each plate-like seam – these were what we threw at cars passing by, or friends who got too close during a game of tag. The sprawling, low branches of the magnolia trees that were perfect for climbing up and jumping out of into carpets of creeping jasmine, only a few sprained ankles resulted (sorry, Mom). The pear tree in the backyard that smelled awful for a few weeks every Spring but had that one perfectly level limb where we attached two dog leashes to a duffle bag and made a swing from the branch. The memories were core, but I still hadn’t made the connection that this outside world was where I was happiest, felt the most inspired, and had the most fun.
It was sometime around 2011 – I had just left New Orleans and moved to Austin and found my little piece of heaven there, deep in the multitude of greenways. New plants, rocks, streams, soil, and the presence of hills caught my attention, even if I didn’t fully realize what I loved so much about being surrounded by green. During this time, outside became my favorite place to be.
By Fall of 2012, I was packing my bags to head to New Zealand with the National Outdoor Leadership School for a semester on the South Island. It was early Spring there. My dumb ass did very little research into the South Island, and as it turns out it’s the “Gateway to Antarctica” in that hemisphere, so my dreams of sub-tropical kayaking, sunshiny hikes, and sunbathing after each long day quickly turned into full 3-millimeter-thick wetsuits for kayaking, fleece mid-layers and puffy outer layers at camp, with a water proof layer to protect it all from the frequent mist and rain. It was here I first heard the phrase “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes”.
Sixty days or so into the semester, and it was time for our solo camp outs. Three days, just you and where you were – talk about having a feeling of Sense of Place. I don’t know why it happened, but I know it did. It hit like a ton of bricks. The sun was in that sweet golden spot, the braided river was sparkling like a ribbon of diamond shards, the tall stand of forest behind me was perfect and every shade of green and blue and brown and gold, the air was clean and cool and had that twinkle and feel to it that’s almost like you stepped through a portal to another dimension. I sat in the tall tussock grass and just started crying. It wasn’t an emotion I’d felt before and it’s still hard to describe, but it was clarity and relief and love and certainty in knowing that my favorite thing and what I wanted to learn about and protect and know all the way down to the deepest level was the natural world – the trees, rocks, hills, holes, flora, fauna, all of it.
Time passed, I followed my gut, and finished up my education in a field of study that focused on how the natural world has affected humans, and how humans have affected the natural world. Afterwards, I set out on a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2016 where I met my now-husband/love of my life and saw the endless bounty of natural wonder this Country has to offer. The Bigleaf Magnolias (Magnolia macrophylla) and Frasier Magnolias (Magnolia fraseri) of Tennessee and Virginia had my eyes in the canopy so much of the time, I rolled my ankles multiple times per hour, I just couldn’t look at the trail on the ground. The first White Birch (Betula papyrifera) I ever saw was in New Jersey, with curling peeled bark that looked like perfect paper, I thought it was a Weirwood (Song of Ice and Fire nerds represent!), and it immediately brought tears to my eyes once I realized what it was. I could go on and on and on but will save that for another story on a different day.
We found ourselves living in Birmingham AL after the trail, and I thrived in my pursuit of plant knowledge and identification and growing capabilities. The gardens and attention to native plants folks in Birmingham have opened my eyes to the new possibility of stepping away from corporate desk jobs and combining my passions for interior/exterior design with my love of the natural world. I quit my office job right after Covid hit and was lucky enough to find myself working with an extremely talented florist, Sarah, in downtown Birmingham. I learned so many invaluable skills and design principles like color theory and floral gestures from Sarah, and eventually was hired as a floriculture manager for a boutique landscaping company. My mentor there, Dwight, is a huge inspiration to me, taught me so much about the little details, and always had sage advice, like “everything looks better wetter”, especially freshly planted seasonal color containers!
I moved to the Coast of Mississippi with my husband in the Fall of 2022 and struggled to find my niche in this new environment. I lost a lot of older plants when we moved that couldn’t handle the zone 9 summers, and needed a cold stratification period they would never have here. There was a short time when I neglected my long-loved plants that did survive the move because I was convinced, they would never be happy here, but in hindsight it was probably a *little* self-projection. I put my gardener’s glasses on, bought a new pair of my favorite gloves, and went to play in the dirt. I began observing again and experimenting with what will grow and adapt to this environment. I’ve gathered research into the old, forgotten, rare, and heirloom plants that used to grow here with gusto. And I’m still a little in awe of the long growing season – Zinnias from March to November? Yes, please!
So here we are on the Coast of Mississippi at the end of a long, hot summer. It’s 2024 and Grace Arwin Home and Garden is open for business. I’m ready to create, grow, flourish, and be inundated in green and flowers and house plants and fruit trees. Reflecting on this journey is nuts and entirely multifaceted, and I’m so happy and proud to be here. I think the wisteria vine and the cypress seeds and the pear tree with its jerry-rigged swing would smile if they knew, and if they could.
I’ll leave you with one last reflection – an overly-dramatic and embarrassing double haiku I wrote (probably after a few glasses of wine) upon returning from New Zealand:
If you must kill me,
break my knees and leave me in
the garden to rot
Lest I spend my days
decaying on the sidewalk,
feeding rock, not dirt.