Welcome to tiny gardens. I start out with a little lyrical horticultural prompt for you, and then get into what I’ve been reading and working on this month.
If you want to: create a sleeping beauty tower
What you will need: a castle, some surrounding acreage, the worst plant in the world
You may remember in the original 1959 Sleeping Beauty movie, the vengeful fairy Maleficent creates more and more brambles and lightning as Prince Phillip approaches Aurora’s tower. As a child, I knew exactly what those plants were: the thorny weeds growing up the trees in our front yard. I just texted my mom to learn what species I was thinking of:
Brought from east to west Texas in the rootball of a red oak: a small saga of the spread of an invasive species! After a little bit of research, I identified it as Smilax rotundifolia, or Greenbriar, and my mom confirmed the ID:
People have created hedges for thousands of years, but you want to create something so much worse that that. If you let these repulsive briars grow for long enough they would form a bush, which you could trim into an unfriendly shape. If you already had a fence, you could skip a few seasons and just let the spiny vines grow over the existing structure.
The Disney movie teaches us an important lesson, though. No matter how aggressive you make your landscaping, people will find a way to disturb your sleep, for better or worse.
Things I wrote in April
I am late, according to my arbitrary deadline! That’s because last weekend I was working on a new episode of Plant Crimes. It’s about whether Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, could be prosecuted for his part in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. It seems like an impossible, even juvenile, dream: Could the powerful corporations and politicians who led us into the climate crisis have to answer to a court of justice? My interview subject, Johannes Wesemann, quoted the British lawyer Philippe Sands: “Nothing sharpens our attentions then the fear of going to jail.” It’s a tempting thought, but the ICC has no jurisdiction over the U.S. And there are a lot of other limitations that made me sigh deeply about how the executives at Exxon are never going to answer for this.
For my Popular Science column, I wrote about how we should leave peat moss in the ground and suggested some alternatives for your houseplant needs.
I started a new job at Wirecutter! I am now the associate writer covering two beats: emergency preparedness and cleaning. I have already plotted out several ways of getting blood for testing purposes.
Things I liked in April
🤠 NASHVILLE EDITION 🤠 I have never been to this city and I liked it! Standouts: hot fried chicken biscuit at Milk and Honey - line dancing with Kyle - listening to John Conlee and Riders in the Sky at the Grand Ole Opry - Adele’s, where my friend and I thought the waiter was going to judge us for eating the whole meal in five minutes before we learned we’d been there, not talking just eating, for an hour and a half - learning during a ghost tour that Andrew Jackson had a possibly politically progressive wife who died shortly before he took office and now haunts the Tennessee capitol building - drinking tea at Living Waters Brewing - the photogenic bar White Limozeen, where the barkeeper gave me a free drink because I ordered a mocktail - Anaconda Vintage, where I found the perfect pair of disco pants - the Johnny Cash museum, where we learned that Cash claimed to be the first American to know that Stalin died - and finally, the Ashe concert. I didn’t cry, that was you crying!
🔋 SUBJECT SWITCH 🔋 Before I switched from Wirecutter fact-checker to writer, my last hurrah was checking the brilliant Tim Heffernan’s How to Pick a Solar Panel and Battery Backup System. It is now my favorite-ever WC guide. If you are growing increasingly skeptical of the grid and thinking of installing a solar system, this is the place to start!
🗽 NYC RECS 🗽
I went on a food tour with this company and it was great. It was cold and raining hard, and the tour guide was so smart and flexible about making sure we were comfortable the whole time. And I learned so much! Every restaurant we went to was family-owned and the food was exquisite.
my friend was hit with an instagram ad for this Taylor Swift tribute candlelight quartet and we took a chance on it! And I’m so glad. I have never been in room of people more into something as both the musicians and the audience were into this performance, and they picked the perfect songs from her oeuvre.
📚 LOOKING FORWARD TO 📚 I have two books on pre-order right now: How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler and Been There, Done That: A Rousing History of Sex by Rachel Feltman. Rachel’s comes out this week! Time to get sexy at the Strand.
I hope you have an excellent month: get your hands dirty, be greedy for tenderness, and keep good boundaries. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or buy a cute Plant Crimes hat on Etsy.
<3
Ellen