I started the book club in June 2019. We meet monthly to discuss a book that has to do with plants. That’s actually a pretty broad definition and the books we’ve read, and continue to read, are quite wide-ranging. The complete list of the books up through the December 2022 book can be found here or by clicking on the Botanical Bibliophile link in the ribbon above.

Not everyone is up to reading a book about plants every month. We watch two movies a year and I include a couple fiction books that revolve around plants. For January 2022 we read The Baron in the Trees, a whimsical tale by Italo Calvino about a boy who would not eat his escargots and took to a life in the trees. We’ll follow up in February with Julia Butterfly Hill’s Legacy of Luna, a true story of living in a tree for two years.

Since May 2020 we’ve been on zoom. The really cool thing about that is that people from anywhere can join us. As our usual attendees travel or even move, they can still be connected to this group of people who love reading and who are happy to read about plants. If you’re interested in learning more and/or in joining us, wherever you are, contact us through the comments here.

Some things just take a long time to do. I grew up during the years of construction on the Washington (DC) Cathedral. It was a common field trip destination, so I watched the building go up over a number of the 83 years it took for construction. It was my introduction to the concept that you could devote your entire working life to something that you would never see completed.

Given that trees can live a thousand years, clearly care of a tree is also something you might spend your life on and never see the end of the work. But, a tree itself, is ongoing, so to speak. So, while you might not live as long as the tree, you can certainly enjoy its perfection (okay, and its diseases and assorted limb failures – a euphemism for dead branches) throughout the time you work with it. You have a hand in what happens but most of the responsibility belongs to the tree.

Somewhere in between and not nearly so long is growing furniture. “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” was a common refrain when I wanted something my parents weren’t going to buy for me. And, of course, that opened the mind of an eight-year-old to the bigger question of what might grow on trees…

Tree shaping is a time-honored tradition but has gone relatively mainstream in the past few years thanks to the spectacular work of Gavin Munro who, with his wife and partner Alison Munro, owns Full Grown. The images on their website seem to be copyright protected so I didn’t shamelessly copy one in here but the chairs, lamps, and other furniture are spectacular. Although they are the most prominent producers at the moment, there are a number of other people engaged in tree shaping. Just google growing furniture from trees or something similar to see some amazing work.

And, with a fast growing tree, like a willow, you can grow your own chair in a decade – which is nothing compared to a century!