A year and a half ago, after several missed chances
on previous trips to the Berkshires, I finally made it to Hancock Shaker Village. This 750-acre “living museum” in Western
Massachusetts was as informative as I expected it to be in telling the story of
the Shakers, an unusual American religious movement that gradually declined
after the 19th century.
What I hadn’t expected, though, was the exposure
that this site would provide to so much information about botany. I shouldn’t
have been surprised, really—after all, among the ways that the Shakers were
able to subsist, through agriculture and commerce, was through knowledge of
botany. But for anyone interested in knowing more about plants—or in
photographing them, as I am—this was a welcome stop.
The photograph I took here is of creeping thyme, an easily grown, low-lying
perennial. Growing creeping thyme ground cover is both deer-resistant and able
to endure frequent foot traffic.
No comments:
Post a Comment