Within a large group of plant people

Early this morning I went with Andrea to the Cranbrook spring flower sale. It is on the grounds of ‘Cranbrook House’ which is the large house that the Booth family lived in even before Cranbrook was a campus. The sale is popular — your aunt is there with hundreds of her friends parking their Volvos and Buicks and thinking about their gardens as they walk inside. This ad-hoc market happens in the back end of the house — the working garden and shop area, which now looks a little overgrown and downtrodden, but it is an English-style Tudor estate (Albert Kahn) so its condition feels appropriate.

I realized I enjoy being within a large group of plant people. When you pick up a small lemon verbena the woman behind the table says ‘those are just the best’ and you put them in your little box they give you. When you check out, all the old ladies are happy you are buying plants and that they are selling plants. Everyone is in their planting clothes, pointing at sprigs and making quiet recommendations about which things the deer won’t eat.

It is springtime in Michigan and the plant people are having the best time.