[The incredible microphotograph above is of the seed lamourouxia viscosa, a tropical plant, a plant I know nothing about but nevertheless a surreal seed worth knowing (or at least viewing)]
Another word for gardener should surely be something like 'patiencer' or patient one. The winter season cerrtainly can try the soul of the most patient gardener. In fact THIS patient gardener has taken to hanign plants up in the bath shower (I even put up a special holder in the ceiling). But of course I have put no seeds up in the bathroom garden -- though perhaps I should -- and any true gardener will tell you that the true measure of a gardener is his/her devotion to the lowly seed and the possibiities therein. It is true that gardening centers carry seeds but for the most part they are teh same ones which we canfind later on at the same gardening center as lush, fully grown plants, ready to bear their fruit or flower. True, seeds are cheaper, you get more plants -- but you also need special condiitions if you've got the plant jones inthe middle of the winter' lighting, heat, room, etc (I remember one year I ordered seeds for a now-forgotten plant and the seed packet must have held a hundred seeds; well, not wanting to waste any thing I planted all of them and in a half-heated garage to boot. Chaos ensued.)
So one thing I have learned over the years from the plants is that it helps to know one's limitations. I gae wistfully, and even mark-up, the winter release of the Thomson-Morgan catalog along with others but I seldom order anything anymore. Lack of proper conditions trumps patience every time these days...Or maybe that's the wrong way to look at it. Maybe I'm simply uber-patient, biding my time until I can grow properly that Echium wildpretii or that Strongylodon macrobotrys, or Gunnera manicata (actually I think given up on this one--I've killed it twice already; conditions just aren't right here in the southeast, not cool enough in the summer; sometimes patience has to be tempered with a bit of resignation/knowledge) --- or a dozen others which I become obsessed with from time to time....and some would say that by all rights I shouldn't even be trying since they aren't natives by a long shot. But hope springs eternal, otherwise we would never plant anything at all, nor plan anything. Even in what seems these apocalyptic-toned times, the seed waits patiently, even if there is no one to plant it. I suppose it's easy to see how that compressed bit of energy and information we call the seed figures so prominently in popular theological discourse viz. faith. ...and why humans are now proposing and building millennium style mega-seed vaults.
