Earlier this month, when I was looking at Myrtle Steet (the south boundary of this subdivision), my eye was distracted from the house by what was being grown in the front yard. Bumpy and the size of grapefruit, these must be a citrus fruit I had known only chopped up in glacé to use in Christmas fruit cakes. Indeed, they ARE citrons; I found them in the Wikepedia.
But at the same address, but off to the left, there was something very like a banana (and there are bananas all over Baton Rouge) but GROSS, yet beautiful in its own way. I mean, see center picture, the bunches of "fruit" (of course, they are botanically vegetables) are way over my head, and the long segmented stem looks like something used for plumbing, and at the bottom hung this oddly translucent purplish growth, with red, bright red, lining. What is in it? Indeed, again, Wikipedia came to the rescue; that extraordinary thing, about eight inches long, is the male flower, and this is another plant that I knew only from Whole Foods (and that only for its edible part). It is a plantain. I wonder whether I might grow one, too; I mean, on line it says you can cook them any way that you cook a yam. What a glorious production of nature!
Now if you look at the plantain plant against the tree, above, you can see at left the plantain bunch and flower hanging there; how strong that plant must be. I also found the composition of winter plants against a bright blue cold sky with cumulus clouds quite beautiful, so I had to photograph it. I mean, that is how Louisiana is: tropical and temperate superimposed.
Then today, just hours ago, as I was entering the NS alley from Cherokee St. to Myrtle, I met a delightful gardener. A friendly neighbor. I suppose they all are friendly (all those I've met outdoors have been). But she invited me into the back yard. I saw the most delightful tiny yard imaginable, from which I attach four of the ten pictures I took . They have a small but artfully very natural seeming fountain feature. On the ledge separating planting from a porch are some of her works in glass, some garlic (looking as inevitable as in Greece), two kinds of hear-no, see-no, speak-no, and a number of other objects, casual but artful at the same time. I had to wonder whether I could do as well. Consider the color composition, less than a yard wide, of tiles, leaves, ceramic flowerpot. Finally, enjoy the muted colors and the juxtaposed dark and white stands at the bottom. And there is much more, all in what is I suppose about 150 square feet. Here is a minor world created, without using any readymade combinations. For the other images, see images nos. 178-188 in the Picasa Album; https://picasaweb.google.com/102498681030579488308/GDNeighborhood2013STUDY
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