An Aspadistra in Manhattan

Second Avenue, Spanish Harlem. A short walk north from the affluent upper East Side of Manhattan. We ventured out of the apartment on a very wet and windy Memorial Day, to buy some herbs and soil from the closest nursery, Dimitris.

Walking north from our apartment always reminds me of my workday commute home , the northwards bus trip uptown from the Fifty Ninth Street Bridge. When I alight the passengers are the usual New York mix of Hispanics, Blacks, Asian and Whites. Gradually the average skin colour darkens the further north the bus travels. So by the time I get off at 96th Street (next stop 106th) the occupants of the bus are nearly all Blacks and Hispanics.

As soon as you cross 96th Street you are in a different Manhattan. A poorer neighbourhood with "Projects" (Housing Commission towers), hospitals, schools and small stores.

Just south of 99th Street is Dimitri's. Dimitri's is not a patch on my favourite Melbourne "Fitzroy Nursery" on Brunswick Street. There you can find lush plants aesthetically scattered amongst whimsical hand-made garden furniture. I used to go there for my weekly fix of seedlings and shrubs. I'd stop and chat with the numerous nursery people there, discussing (and smelling) the various eucalypts, talking about the plants tenderly, and with the warm feeling that comes of a shared enjoyment in something as wonderful as life and growth.

The Manhattan nursery is like its geographical location, a complete opposite. I see no one tending the rows of shrubs which, although healthy enough, have a neglected feel. There's no feeling of joy or surprise as in the Fitzroy Nursery where there are windy paths suddenly opening up onto a splashes of color and joy.

Dimitri's, like its city, is laid out as a grid. There's no imagination, and instead of whimsical sculptures made out of recycled glass and stainless seal, there are just rows of gravel and plants set out in rows.

Inside near the counter, instead of home made terra cotta pots and interesting wind chimes made by local artists, there are plastic imports from China some sad looking bulbs.

I remembered another life - my first husband, trying to experiment with plants at his one-teacher school in the bush in Australia. Another world away.

Do plants have feelings; do they thrive when they are tendered with care? He had the school set up two sets of plants. One set was constantly ignored and given the basics for survival only. The other group was to be "loved", the leaves caressed and the plants talked to every time the children passed. Did the unloved plants fail to thrive? I can't remember, but the Manhattan nursery plants look like they belong in the loveless category of that faraway experiment in another land.

Today I rescued some. The chives, basil and cilantro have been planted out with care, in plastic (what else?) on the balcony garden of our Manhattan apartment. They are surrounded by some very happy pansies and rosemary, a pot of mint and some thyme.

I HAD wanted an aspidistra. I'd asked one of the two "gardeners" at the Manhattan nursery did they have any. I had to repeat my question. He seemed to think I was talking in a foreign language, and when he gave me as terse "NO" I thought he was just trying to get rid of me.

Feeling rejected like the plants, we paid and left, walking past some stringy potted bamboo selling at $400, and walked home, to plant our $60 purchases into two small plastic containers.

Kate Juliff
New York
May 2003