Floral Radiographs

by Kathy Purdy on March 7, 2003

This has nothing to do with cold climate gardening per se, but should be fascinating to anyone who loves flowers. At Floral Radiographs: The Secret Garden, Albert Richards displays his x-rays, yes, x-rays, of many common flowers. He produces an image both beautiful and fascinating. Now, I saw this same technique in the March 2003 issue of Marth Stewart Living, this time employed by Bryan Whitney to illustrate basic botany concepts. MSL came in my mailbox, but I found Richards’ floral radiographs via dublog via MSNBC’s Weblog Central. Amazing where you’ll end up when you start surfing the internet, eh?

About Kathy Purdy

Kathy Purdy discovered the joys of writing in fourth grade, when she started corresponding with a former classmate. She's been writing letters ever since, first on looseleaf, then electronically, and now as weblog entries. That makes you, the blog reader, her pen pal. Her first independent (though frustrating) attempts at gardening were made in high school, though the gardening bug didn't bite hard until her mid-thirties, when she found herself mistress of a rural home on 15 acres. • USDA Hardiness Zone:4 • AHS Heat Zone: 3 • Location: rural; Southern Tier of NY • Geographic type: foothills of Appalachian Mountains • Soil Type: acid clay • Experience level: intermediate • Particular interests: colchicums, narcissus, cottage gardening, NY native plants, gardening with/for children

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To northern gardeners, this time of year [March] is full of anxious pleasure. Even as they daydream about the botanical pleasures of June and July, ordinary mortals find themselves nearly defeated by the gardening deadlines that pass so swiftly in March. Extraordinary mortals--whose seeds arrived two months ago, whose windows are now full of seedlings, and who are ready to sow peas and carrots the instant the soil thaws--will suffer torments of their own when the perfections they're planning somehow fail to germinate or blossom. A garden is just a way of mapping the strengths and limitations of your personality onto the soil. It would be too much to bear if nature didn't temper a gardener's ambition or laziness with her own unsolicited abundance.

Verlyn Klinkenborg