I passed between the stone pillars marking the entrance and was both surprised and amazed to find the heather garden already in bloom.

Adding to the coral-reel effect were Scottish brooms, patches of cotoneaster and—in the distance—he medusa-like branches of a colonnade of American elm trees.

Below me, a grotto of Eastern White Pines—one of the most dignified of all the evergreens in the city—provided a screen against the low afternoon sun.

Fort Tryon Park was designed by Frederick Olmstead, Jr. (the son of the Central Park architect) and completed in 1935 with money and land provided by John D. Rockefeller. (The Cloisters—the branch of the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to medieval art—was built at the same time.)

As I strolled along the elaborate network of paths and tunnels so beautifully embedded into the Manhattan schist that forms the bedrock of the island, I looked at the George Washington Bridge (completed in exactly four years, from 1927-1931) and wondered whether our current society will be known for having built such magnificent and enduring public works. I considered that Fort Tryon fell into serious disrepair during the middle decades of the last century before being restored in the late 1980s (with the help of Bette Midler, who is something of a patron saint in these parts for this reason), and it occurred to me that perhaps the restoration and maintenance is the best we can hope for in the modern era, when everything is so expensive and politically complicated.

A week later I returned, a few days after the snowstorm. As expected, much of the park was buried under windswept drifts, but was no less beautiful for the lack of color.

I think one of the reasons snow evokes such intense feelings of nostalgia for so many people—or maybe I should narrow that down to myself, now that I’m looking back on 40—is that it provide evidence for the idea that our lives can change radically in an instant.

Whereas the previous week I was more inclined to step back and take in the entire vista, I now focused on smaller details, such as the individual flowers poking out from under the snow.

To examine the plants closely was to realize that—snow or not—they were preparing for spring, and many of the buds, such as the ones pictured, belonging to a sumac, seemed to have grown larger and more engorged during the intervening week. In short, I felt inspired by nature’s fundamental ambivalence to the sort of vagaries that humanity takes so seriously.

On the way out of the park, the birds were chirping under an old sycamore tree.

Change is slow, they seemed to sing, but it is always here.

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown. You can see him read for three whole minutes tonight at Housing Works in Manhattan!

Matthew: Excellent — and how often do you water it?
Jessica: A very little bit of water, just enough to moisten the soil, every other week.
Matthew: That sounds very sensible — I've found that overwatering is often a problem for indoor plant owners.
Jessica: I agree. I always begin with little water, within reason, and increase if the plant seems wilty and thirsty.

Matthew: I seem to remember you having a bit of a bug infestation a few months ago—is that cured? Or I should say, your plant?
Jessica: Ha, thanks for clearing that up! One day I was gazing at the ZZ and noticed that there was some movement going on. Many itty white bugs. I washed the leaves with soapy water every day for a few days, and the bugs disappeared.
Matthew: So it's completely cured?
Jessica: Completely.

Matthew: Perfect. Speaking of gazing, I noticed that you keep a picture of a garden on your computer. Can you tell me about that?
Jessica: Ah yes. It is a little bit of inspiration. That garden is a dream. It is in Marin County, and has a view of the SF bay. There are stone paths, spots to read, and Japanese maples (one of my favorites). You can see the hills across the bay. The picture was taken in the Spring—I often wonder how it looks during the other seasons.
Matthew: Did you visit it in the spring as well?
Jessica: I have never visited! It is a private garden—I swiped the picture from a magazine and stuck in on my computer.
Matthew: Aha! So it's purely inspiration!
Jessica: Yes, yes. It is a part of my little inspiration board.
Matthew: Tell me about the quotes?
Jessica: There are two right now. One is a reminder to be gracious, grateful, and generous with my spirit. I heard it somewhere and it stuck with me. The other is from Pema Chodron. She talks about the heart—and declares that an open heart has no limits. There is space.
Matthew: Would you say that your own philosophy about life is dictated in any way by your understanding of plants? I'm talking about more of a personal level than broadly ecological.
Jessica: Well—my plants have taught me be open to the unexpected. You just never know what they are going to do, and how they are going to react to things. One of my first herbs was a flowering lavender. It was in a small pot, and I moved it two times into vastly different light and temperature situations. The plant thrived! It grew and grew, I dried lots of lavender for tea and things. Then, I had to move again, and left it with a friend who is great with plants. And it died. She tried everything.
Matthew: Oh! That's very sad…
Jessica: It was so sad. She even brought it to a few plant experts. I felt terrible, and she felt terrible. But she is the one who bought me the ZZ. And it is a real gift to have such a spunky plant in my windowless cubicle!
Matthew: Tell me this: how important is it for you that a potential relationship partner be good with plants?
Jessica: Hmm… it is important that my potential relationship partner appreciate plants, and accompany me on lots of walks through gardens while I exclaim things like, "Look at those amazing *insert name of plant*!"

Matthew: I like that! Let's finish with the poinsettia, which I believe is a December addition to your space?
Jessica: Yes. The poinsettia was meant as a gift, but it never made it to its final destination….
Matthew: Meaning you were going to give it someone?
Jessica: Well, yes. But I just couldn't part with it. That person got some tea and chocolate instead. I am going to try to keep the poinsettia alive all year. Wish me luck.
Matthew: Bonne chance! Do you have any experience with poinsettias? I think they are difficult?
Jessica: They are very difficult and delicate. When I was growing up, every year my grandmother would take me to buy a poinsettia. I would always choose the most scrawny one, because I was worried that it would not be bought for Christmas.
Matthew: A 'Charlie Brown' poinsettia!

Jessica: Exactly! Then, when I was in high school and college, I worked at a garden center that sold poinsettias. They were kept in a big greenhouse. My favorite job was to stay in the greenhouse and care for them. It was so warm and quiet and peaceful! People would come in on Christmas Eve and buy 20 and 30 at a time as gifts. I was always sad to see them go!
Matthew: They were your children, in a way? Or at least your charges?
Jessica: Haha! I guess you could say that. I do get very attached.
Matthew: Well, I think it's a beautiful image.
Jessica: It was a really beautiful time! That was a great job.
Matthew: In conclusion, do you have any advice for cubicle dwellers who might be interested in having a plant?
Jessica: Yes. Go for it! Try a ZZ, or if you have a window a jade or something of the sort. Every cubicle/office should have a plant—they add so much good energy!

Jessica Picone is an assistant editor at ____. She loves plants and dreams of one day having her own garden. Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

The early-afternoon sun, low in the late-autumn sky, reflected off the water and infused the landscape with an oversaturated, celestial light, which—because we were alone—added to the quiet, surreal quality of the scene. We decided to head north, safely upwind from the sewage treatment plant in Harlem, and as we turned away from the hazy outline of the buildings downtown, it felt as if we were the only two people alive, leaving the city for the last time.

I paused to examine a patch of white clover (Trifolium repens), some of which was in bloom.

'There's so much I would like to forget about this decade,' I said to Stephen after we continued, and then passed the bloated corpse of an unemployed man who had been killed by a death squad after testing positive for HIV and left to rot in the bushes.

'No, that's not until 2013,' Stephen corrected me, after ____ is elected President. 'But let's not talk about politics,' he quickly added. I nodded; it seemed futile to rehash the wars, the income disparity, the stagnation of civil rights, the environmental degradation, the religious fundamentalism, the insidious promulgation of stereotypes by the advertising-entertainment-media complex, the lack of universal health care and the increased corruption at every level of government (to name just a few items) that marked the previous decade and—with the exception of a few small plateaus in the downward trajectory—the three before that, i.e., my entire life.

I remembered the first time Stephen brought me to this stretch of the Hudson River—and shortly after that, to live with him in Washington Heights—almost exactly ten years before this present walk. Having returned here often enough so that I associated this spot with the passing years, I knew that my appreciation for its beauty—or more to the point, the artifice that is 'nature' in the metropolis—was an unexpected consequence (or benefit) of my decision to 'come out' as a non-heterosexual, this too in conjunction with meeting Stephen. Like a person whose full spectrum of sight is miraculously restored with a knock on the head—or an arrow through the heart—I began to perceive my surroundings in a manner that felt less prescribed than inspired, as if I were responsible for creating the world in which I lived, and not the other way around.

If this process was one of assessment, both of those around me and my own character—the qualities and weaknesses I had long tried to dismiss or ignore as I devoted myself to hiding the biggest 'flaw' of all—it had also led to my withdrawal (to the extent possible) from those parts of society to which I had grown accustomed but could no longer endure (or that could no longer endure me). Although I could not have explained it in such terms at the beginning of the decade, to move to Washington Heights—a neighborhood in which I was a 'minority' in almost any sense of the word—had transformed me into an 'outsider' or foreigner, and brought into relief the kind of fear and hatred that so often defines relations between those who hold power and those who do not.

As we walked through the decrepit ruins of the esplanade, I dismissed a tendency to romanticize the past, along with any inclination to see it restored. 'Let's not talk about real estate, either,' Stephen cautioned me, and again I nodded, understanding that the fate of the city, much less the waves of capital and reconstruction that drive its relentless mutation in the modern era, is almost beyond the comprehension, and certainly the control, of any person.

We approached a small grove of evergreens, and I thought about a few things of importance (speaking subjectively, of course) I had learned in the past decade, such as how to tell the difference (or, well, most of the time) between a spruce and a pine and a deciduous conifer such as the dawn redwood, several of which could also be found nearby.

We stopped to admire an impressive Eastern White Oak (Quercus alba) that held a few remaining leaves.

A crabapple tree (part of the Rosacea family) laden with fruit seemed like a promising sign for any birds who planned to remain north for the winter.

As did the elderberry bushes, which grew vigorously in the underbrush next to the train tracks.

A depression in the ground was overflowing with acorns, which made me wonder if the squirrels near our apartment—the ones who battled the traffic and rats—knew about this bounty next to the river. So much of life, it seemed, was rooted in contingency, i.e., the luck (or bad luck) of where and when we happen to be born and the infinite circumstances—most completely beyond our control—that may or may not unfold as we muddle along during the time allotted to us. If we're fortunate, we may be given the opportunity to arrange the events of our past to make them seem as if they were 'meant to happen,' but this is really a dramatic facade that allows us to avoid thinking about the more obvious truth, which is that we are all susceptible to any of an infinite number of unforeseen causes and effects.

Back on the water, a group of mallards paddled by, and I wondered if they lived on the river year-round, or if like us they were just passing through.

The shoreline was littered with debris, some of which could have been fragments from Atlantis.

And some of which was less interesting.

As we approached the George Washington Bridge, I contrasted this marvel of aesthetics and engineering with the detritus in its shadow, and was struck by the dissonance between the product and the byproduct of the city, along with the futility of thinking—as I had most certainly done when I was younger—that anything approaching a state of perfection or 'harmony' could ever be achieved.

A wall erected in the wake of 9/11 prevented us from getting too close to the towers.

We walked around to the other side, and were amazed to find sunflowers in bloom behind a security fence.

In the distance we could see the lighthouse, which made me feel oddly hopeful, although about exactly what I could not have said.

I knew that once, I was lost in the weeds.

And yet here in the weeds I had also been found.

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Song,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

Or at least this is how it felt to me over the past few weeks as one by one, I picked up the millions of leaves that had fallen from the white birch and other trees, both in our yard and the neighboring lots. This is a labor-intensive process in a small garden like ours, where rakes or leaf-blowers are not practical unless you want to rip up all of your groundcovers; which in my case, I would rather die.

But there's a meditative quality to picking up the leaves like this, which, in addition to preparing the garden for winter, allows you to visit each plant and to think about how you have pleased or disappointed each other over the previous months, and how you might improve the relationship next year.

It's a tending process not unlike what happens in some families, where simply by spending time together after the inevitable battles and hurt feelings, you reach a rapprochement and perhaps even acceptance of each other's frailties and shortcomings.

It was not difficult to remember how, in July and August, I had grown disillusioned with the failure of the Acer palmatum 'Elizabeth' to grow more than a millimeter and threatened (but only in my mind) to rip it out of the ground and hurl it into the vacant lot next door. But now I was consoled and even entranced by its crimson leaves, which, while perhaps not the blazing cloud I've seen elsewhere on mature specimens, nevertheless provided a lovely contrast between the evergreen ferns and the weeping blue spruce.

Nor could I claim to still be disappointed with our other Japanese Maple—an Acer palmatum 'shishigashira' (aka 'the shish')—who after languishing in the background for so many months seemed thrilled to step forward (albeit not without an understandable schadenfreude) and take center-stage after the demise of the painted ferns, which had wilted by mid-October.

I was similarly inclined to forgive our beech tree—a columnar variety, Fagus sylvatica 'Dawyck Purple'—for turning green during the heavy rains of June, now that its leaves had turned a hypnotic shade of orange.

By the same token, if the trees weren't filled with overwhelming affection for me, their caretaker, they seemed resigned to living in a tiny, overcrowded garden surrounded by bleak apartment buildings. While perhaps not the future they had imagined as young saplings, when they had dreamed of growing up on lush estates or botanical gardens, they had at least been spared the sad fate of so many of their brethren, who die of loneliness and neglect in the nursery sections of 'big-box retailers' such as ____ or _____.

I paused to admire a fall crocus that had pushed through a patch of leaves I had yet to clear from the ground.

The small, delicate flower leaned over to whisper that winter was coming, but that spring would not be so far away.

Previously: In Search of Lost Roses

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Song,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

All of these regrets were triggered by the sight of the name 'Hawthorne' on the exit sign of the Saw Mill River Parkway. In addition to being the site of the nursery, it (i.e., the hawthorn, albeit without the extra 'e') plays a pivotal role in Swann's Way, the first volume of the larger work by Marcel Proust I have recently been reading in the newish translation by Lydia Davis. Specifically, the narrator first glimpses Gilberte Swann, who later becomes the focus of his first obsessive crush, through a hedge of hawthorns.

Before attending to the mulch, we strolled through the grounds of the nursery. Where only months earlier there had been rows and rows of lush, preening trees and perennials, there were now large swaths of empty gravel.

A cedar tree seemed particularly forlorn, tilted at such a strange angle in its root ball.

I even felt sorry for an espaliered juniper, which is probably the lowliest of all conifers for its prevalence in the medians of suburban parking lots and gas stations.

I morosely wondered if I had reached an age when I could identify with these aimless, ill-fated plants and post-Halloween pumpkins.

My mood improved as I returned to the center of the nursery, where a stunning array of trees stood clumped together, perhaps to endure the winter like the penguins in that popular movie from a few hundred years ago. Although there were no hawthorns to be found, the brilliant red fruit of the zumi crabapple tree more than consoled me.

As did the orange berries of a nearby firethorn, which in fact is in the same family (Rosaceae) as the hawthorn (and not surprisingly, the rose.)

The cotoneaster is also in the rose family, and its lovely red berries never fail to charm me.

The purple beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma) is not in the rose family, however, and the bubble-gum tone of its fruit left me a bit nauseated.

Stepping back to admire the flaming leaves of a dwarf fothergilla, I realized that there was no pink to be found, and for a moment—returning to Proust—I again wished it could be spring, just so I could experience firsthand the power of his description. As he writes of the pink hawthorn blooms in May (translated so perfectly by Davis), 'these flowers had chosen precisely the color of an edible thing, or of a delicate embellishment to an outfit for an important holiday, one of those colors which, because they offer children the reason for their superiority, seem most obviously beautiful to the eyes of children, and for that reason will always seem more vivid and more natural to them than the other tints…'

But with the mulch purchased and loaded into the car, it was time to return to the city. As we pulled back onto the highway, I admired a stand of dawn redwoods—the needles russet in the November sun—and felt actually relieved that spring was still many months away.

Previously: City Island

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

The second I walked through the entrance of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, I knew I had made the right decision to skip the historic site of ____ (est. 1287), which several of my colleagues opted to visit on a recent Sunday afternoon before a series of 'business meetings' that would occupy us through the duration of our stay.

The grounds were empty, which made it all the easier—as I considered a massive birch tree, with a magical, silver trunk unlike any I had ever seen—to picture J.R.R. Tolkien as he strolled these same paths, his head filled with elves and hobbits.

In New York City, of course, I would have expressed a more snobbish disdain for anything affiliated with 'Lord of the Rings,' but here, surrounded by trees that were hundreds of years old—and with the low northern sun breaking through the clouds—it was impossible to be jaded or cynical as I pondered the question of Frodo and Sam's non-heterosexual attraction.

I made my way to the oldest tree in the garden, an English Yew (Taxus baccata) planted in 1645 during the English Civil War (instigated after King Charles passed 'universal health care').

An English hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) planted in 1800 struck me as more 'ent-like.'

As did a black pine (Pinus negrus), dating from the same year.

Neither of which lessened my admiration for a moss-covered Service Tree (Sorbus domestica) that was even ten years older.

I next went to the rock garden, still glistening after an afternoon rain-shower.

With serious pangs of exhilaration (and admittedly, jealousy), I considered an immense patch of sandwort (Minuartia stellata) oozing across the rocks. I've spent many hours trying to decipher my obsession for alpine plants, but like so many attractions, this one seems to elude any kind of rational explanation.

I felt more sedate on the 'autumn walk,' lined with gorgeous dahlias and heleniums.

Regrettably, the sun began to set, which led me to stroll more aggressively through the various sections of botanical family borders. I could not resist stopping to admire another stunning sorbus (S. sargentiana, native to West China) laden with clusters of bright orange berries.

As I left the garden, I asked myself why the fuck I lived in New York City, where life is so often difficult, abrasive and ugly. But like my love for ___ and ___, I knew that even if it defied logic, the city was already pulling me back into its orbit, and though I had been gone for just a few days, I already longed to return.

Previously: Jumel Terrace

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

Often this street (Sylvan Terrace) will be empty or you might meet a first-time visitor walking around in circles, dazed by the incongruous setting. 'Do you know what this is?' a woman asked me the other day. I understood what she meant and gave her my stock response: the houses were originally built in the late 1800s for the servants of the mansion, which you can see at the other end of the street. 'I heard there used to be a brothel here,' she breathlessly informed me. 'I saw it on Channel 13.'

I approached the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which is the oldest house in New York City Manhattan. According to the New York Post, it may or may not be literally haunted….

….and not just by the specters of poverty, governmental ambivalence, crime and corruption that are the hallmarks of this part of Washington Heights.

I stood under a black locust tree and read the plaque: George Washington, our first non-heterosexual President of the United States 'slept' here with some of his soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

I went through the gate onto the empty grounds and sat for a few minutes with the ghosts on the park benches.

There is a dilapidated quality to the mansion and the surrounding estate that is both maddening—from a gentrification historical-interest perspective—and comforting to the extent one is inclined to a Schopenhauerian ethos of pessimism and resignation.

Two hundred years ago, the grounds were spectacular. A volunteer working on a restoration showed off some autumn crocus and explained that these were just one of hundreds of species of plants that would eventually be cultivated to replicate the original four quadrants of flowering herbs and perennials in the sunken garden: culinary, fragrance, medicinal and hallucinogenic.

The sundial seemed to point in one direction: the past.

I examined the stump of a magnolia tree that—according to the volunteer—was poisoned with chemicals a few years ago by some thoughtful person.

There is still one left, however.

I spent a few minutes strolling the crumbling brick paths, the borders of which—though in obvious need of organization and resources—have an overgrown charm. I stopped to admire a few things, such as a small patch of aster.

The creeping cotoneaster also had lovely orange berries.

Back out on the cobblestone street, I noted a rare 'Firebird' bush.

Approaching Amsterdam, I felt exhausted by my walk, as if I were carrying 200 years of neglect on my shoulders. I set down my cane and paused to rest for a few minutes on a railing. 'How to survive on an island,' I thought, and wished that I knew.

Previously: Gardening Is My Blank

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

I was in Washington not to consider the plight of hot gay sex, however, but to attend a conference of intellectual-property attorneys held annually at the ___, a hotel known for its lush gardens and lavish interiors.

I spent a few seconds admiring the grounds, which thanks to the swaths of salvia, begonia and marigold had a parade-float quality that (at least for a moment) seemed to hold the promise of grand entrances made by ladies (of either gender) with immense hair and taffeta gowns.

Sadly, the atmosphere inside was decidedly restrained; all present seemed to agree that attendance was 'off.' Even as the Dow crossed 10,000 on Wednesday, lawyers remained skittish; layoffs were announced at several of the biggest, most prestigious IP law firms. The exhibit hall where I was stationed—in my capacity as a supplier of analytical content to the 'IP legal market'—was empty and sullen, except for those few hours on Thursday afternoon when everyone was horrified/entranced by the fate of #balloonboy.

During my breaks, I wandered through the old parts of the hotel, where the potted palms and empty armchairs added to the aura, which was deserted, beautiful and soulless.

Braving the unrelenting drizzle, I went outside to examine a blue atlas cedar.

Standing in the rain, I was hypnotized by the vibrant, glistening colors of the surrounding plants and remembered 'tripping my ass off' on magic mushrooms a few thousand years ago in England. For a moment it seemed inconceivable that I had traveled from there to here, and I felt at a loss to describe exactly how it had happened.

As I walked back through the hotel, I hated the manufactured cheeriness of the vaguely art-nouveau floral motif on the carpet.

When the conference ended, I returned to the airport, where I watched the arrival of a group of WWII veterans from Asheville, North Carolina. A brass band played 'It's a Grand Ole Flag' and 'The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B.' There were no plants to be seen anywhere, although—as if to make up for it, by offering something else I had never seen—a sprightly woman jitterbugged with those men who were capable.

I thought about 'Victory Gardens,' and what would happen now if the government encouraged citizens to grow their own food, and whether Fox News (via the Drudge Report) would declare this a 'socialist outrage.'

As I flew home, I thought about the fate of the garden in the modern world, its shift from 'necessity' to 'accessory,' at least for most of us. What exactly is the point? The skyline of New York seemed ambivalent to the question.

Back in the hallways of La Guardia Airport, Mike Bloomberg—who has all the answers—gave me what I was looking for.

Gardening is my _____. (Everybody's got something to offer.)

Previously: Gay Gardens

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

After parking the car, we went directly to a remarkable assortment of cement lions, any one (or more!) of which would have been suitable for the urban garden.

I regretted the lack of space in our current garden and not for the first time dreamed of moving to the estate section of Riverdale in the Bronx. It was not hard to picture ten or fifteen of these magnificent lions scattered about the grounds, some partially submerged in the earth—or at a minimum covered with moss and ferns—perhaps broken into pieces in the attempt to call forth the essence of ruins, which if you are anything like us is one of the most desirable gardening aesthetics for its reflection of a philosophical pessimism that stands in marked contrast to a more Hegelian ethos promulgated by certain shallow-minded optimists or 'utopians'.

Note that if you are investing in 'lionware' for your garden, you will want to avoid a traditional or classical placement—for example, on symmetrical plinths outside a doorway—which will lead you down one of two equally undesirable paths: 'narchitecture' or camp.

I was less enthralled by the selection of lesbian statues on hand.

Inside, we admired serving trays. These are a necessary accessory to the garden, for what else would you use to carry the bottles of _____ with which you will get completely zonkered while staring at the leaf motifs under the flickering candlelight as you lament the current state of your life and society at large?

We bought several green bowls for a friend, whom we excitedly texted with pictures. By spending only $____ for these items in the suburbs, which would have cost $____ in the city, we saved him a lot of money!

We next went a few miles down the road to an apple orchard.

Here we observed throngs of non-homosexual sentimentalists leading their children through the pumpkins.

Despite our status as urban non-heterosexual outsiders, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement. Everything seemed freshly picked and beautifully packaged and not even that expensive. Just like in our local grocery stores in Washington Heights.

Even the chrysanthemums—that 'perennial' symbol of suburban conformity—tugged at my heart, and for a few seconds I wanted to leave the city and live like any other upper-middle class American married couple in the suburbs with shitloads of disposable income (thanks to the great bank bailout of 2008).

We consoled ourselves by eating at least a dozen donuts each and drinking hot apple cider. We sat in the sun, swatting away the bees, until the vision of what we wanted and did not want was burned away, and I felt relieved by a more familiar sense of resignation and ambivalence.

Back in Washington Heights, I was happy to be mesmerized by the red leaves of a pin oak at 165th Street and St. Nicholas.

Previously: The Hyacinth Bean Vine

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

Though it is an annual—at least here in New York City—which means it will almost certainly dieâ„¢ not long after the first frost, I sometimes have my doubts; what I can report is that the seed packet in which it was delivered to us last winter accurately (if somewhat ominously) described the plant as a 'VERY unique addition to your garden.'

In years past, we were plagued by a spot where nothing seemed to survive, or at least flourish. This 'Bermuda Triangle' was specifically located against the back wall of the house, which means that—thanks to the southern exposure and brick façade—any plant in the vicinity must survive extremes of light and (more problematic) heat and humidity. Initially we tried climbing roses, but these became straggly and diseased—hardly reminiscent of the 'English cottage' aesthetic we longed to achieve—and then switched to a Black-Eyed Susan vine, which also succumbed to the torpor of August and failed to flower.

Enter the Hyacinth Bean Vine, which—as one botanicamonstroligist has noted—is also known as 'Indian Bean, Egyptian Bean, Lablab purpureus, Bonavist, Chinese Flowering Bean and Pharoah Bean.' Equally terrifying noteworthy is the fact that, even though its seeds are highly poisonous, 'it is widely grown in Africa, India and Asia for use as food for both humans and livestock.'

Although the vine has recently risen to prominence after achieving an unprecedented 'trifecta' in the 2008 Plant of the Year Awards (winning top honors in individual categories of vines, edibles and annuals), its use in the United States extends at least as far back as Thomas Jefferson, who grew it at his farm in Monticello, while Edgar Allen Poe wrote the first draft of 'The Pit and the Pendulum' in ink made from its seed casings. In France, the great JK Huysmans—writing in 1884—described its flower as 'a little winged bell of faded lilac, an almost dead mauve…with the odor of toy boxes of painted pine; it recalled the horrors of a New Year's Day.' Some have speculated that the plant was also—at least in part—the inspiration for Thomas Pynchon's inscrutable epic 'Vineland.' (Note that everything in this paragraph may or may not be fabricated.)

We planted our vine in a small pot placed at the base of an unsightly drainpipe, this wrapped in chicken wire to allow it to climb. (I recommend a black plastic variety that is infinitely more attractive than the more traditional metal.) Hardly deterred by the torrential rains of June, the plant quickly soldiered up the drain and soon covered it. An initial wave of flowers and pods in July gave way to a slight August slump—there was a slight yellowing at the edges of some leaves—after which the vine rebounded in September.

The Hyacinth Bean Vine is best viewed from a safe distance, where—if you are anything like me—the act of contemplating it will send you back into the realm of lost memories and improbable events. In my case, I am reminded of an afternoon many years ago in Paris; standing on a sidewalk—this in the Sixth Arrondissement, not far from _____—I found myself in the middle of an onslaught of screaming schoolchildren just getting out of a nearby lycée. As I stood paralyzed, I was struck by the stream of blue jeans, backpacks, sneakers and sweatshirts—i.e., American clothes that the older generation of Parisians viewed with disdain—but which nevertheless managed to preserve a distinctly French character by way of a deep green and (rock on) deep purple present on every item, a garish juxtaposition of tones that—again, in the words of Huysmans—had been 'loaned by nature to humanity to allow each society to create its own monstrosities.'

Previously: The Protest Garden

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown.

Though I regretted my mistake, it was hardly a disaster, given that my primary purpose in going to Pittsburgh was to visit my parents, who still live in the same 'upper-middle-class' suburb (by Midwestern standards, of course) where I grew up. I was also excited to spend time in their garden, which I had not seen this growing season.

Saturday morning was overcast and drizzling, which did not prevent me from admiring a patch of orange gerbera. At first I thought they were zinnia, but my father corrected me after (to my slight horror) he retrieved the plastic identification card from the ground where they were planted. 'I bought them at _____,' he said without a trace of irony, referring to the notorious 'big-box retailer.'

I was amazed at how tall the Dawn Redwood had grown, which made me relieved that Stephen and I had opted for a columnar version of the tree in our own garden. My parents' garden is structurally anchored by a series of birch and pine trees, which is also similar to our New York City garden (if you substitute 'one' for 'a series of' and 'spruce' for 'pine.') I found this comforting, as if it proved that a shared aesthetic could endure across generations, when so much else that I have admired seems headed into the fires of obscurity.

As pleased as I was by this thought, when I strayed from under the dripping boughs of the evergreens, I could not help but contrast the sepulchral silence I encountered on the street to what I imagined downtown a day earlier. It occurred to me that perhaps future G-20 protest marches should be routed through the outlying suburbs, which are so often populated by the worst offenders in terms of egregious consumption and bland uniformity (i.e., the very things I crave on a daily basis in Washington Heights).

That afternoon, Jennifer picked me up and we went out for coffee at a nearby shop (but not at ____, which is not to say I never go there). She heatedly described not only the intensity of the marches in which she had participated (both the sanctioned and unsanctioned events) as well as her frustration with those she had met in the meantime who had asked her: 'Exactly what were you protesting, anyway?'

She described the terror of being corralled into small spaces (although in one case this included a functioning bar, somewhat awesomely) and being subjected to the 'sonic canon' and tear gas, along with having the surreal sense of being in a 'war zone' as a result of the circling helicopters and advancing battalions of robotic militia. This predictably led to a wider discussion of our disillusionment with the Democratic leadership and speculation of a Santorum/Palin candidacy in 2012. Santorum, of course, has roots in Western Pennsylvania. By the time Jennifer dropped me off at my parents' house, I was exhilarated, agitated and despondent all at once.

I returned to the garden and wondered if I could ever be overtly 'political' again, the way I had been years earlier, when I had lived in Washington, D.C. and protested ___ and ____ and ____. (Oh right, and ___.) Had any of it done any good? It's hard to say, at least in practical terms. Having recently watched Easy Rider, I felt as if—more than ever—I could identify with Peter Fonda's concluding sentiment of having 'blown it,' even if I can't specify exactly what 'it' is.

As I listened to the rain and observed the nearby trees and plants, I tried to reconcile my love for the ornate and pervasive pessimism of the likes of Arthur Schopenhauer—AKA, the hater of Hegel and 'the bitchiest queen' of all the great philosophers—with a subsequent admiration I hold for the more expansive and optimistic notions of solidarity expressed in the work of Richard Rorty. I knew it would be impossible, but as I considered a hemlock in the waning light, it didn't seem to matter, either; for a second, the beautiful ambivalence of this tiny piece of nature felt like the best protest of all.

Previously: Grapes

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, 'The Metropolis Case,' will be published in 2010 by Crown. The G-20 photos by Jennifer Baron, who is an artist and writer who lives in Pittsburgh. She is the editor of the Pittsburgh Signs Project.

Please note that for purposes of this post, we will put aside issues related to pesticide use and migrant farm workers long endemic to the grape-industrial-complex, about which Dwight D. Eisenhower so eloquently spoke after leaving office, i.e., during Season 1 of Mad Men.

Oh and another good thing about grapes from a gardening perspective: they grow on 'vines,' an essential component of every garden and the 'missing link' between the plant and animal world. You could even say that a garden without vines is like a ____ without _____.

We planted our grapevine almost eight years ago after impulsively buying (from our local nursery) what looked like a small stick, which we popped into the ground. Miraculously — given our status as 'entry-level gardeners' — it grew, although it did follow the Rule of Vines, i.e., first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap, fourth year strangle small animals. Mostly we planted it for privacy, and so trained it up and over a wooden arbor that extends across the back of the garden. We were shocked when a few years later it flowered and then — get this! – these same flowers turned into adorable clusters of tiny green fruit that over the course of the summer grew 'big and heavy and engorged with sweet juice.' (I know, but grapes ARE kind of soft-porny.)

Even better, the grapes turned out to be red and seedless. Each September we harvest and eat (some of) them, and because this is pretty much the extent of our 'edible garden' (along with some basil), we feel healthy and accomplished, even if we didn't grow corn, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, merlot lettuce and rapa, unlike a certain other teacher's pet 'entry-level gardener.'

Closer to home, a search of the New York Times archives reveals that the flower was quite popular during the 'Mad Men' era, which, roughly speaking, lasted three decades, from 1940-1970 (or the same length of time as their Season 3 advertising campaign this summer). As Claire Norton wrote for the Society Show Women's News Blog in 1941, 'It seems fitting, in these days when the Pan-American theme is so prevalent, that the zinnia, originally hailing from Mexico, should be gaining an even higher place in popular favor than it has enjoyed in the past. In fact, so varied in size and color are some of the new types that they are becoming serious rivals of the dahlia in these respects, as well as being much more adaptable in garden use.'

Then came a somewhat more defensive post from Mary Coleman in 1951: 'Ladies, zinnias are still among the most popular and useful of annuals. These warm-weather favorites are so generally grown that they seem almost common. But! If the possibilities are explored and their preferences catered to, the results can be quite out-of-the-ordinary.'

Yet by 1971, Joan Lee Faust—writing for Arts & Leisure—treats the flower with a certain disdain that will not be unfamiliar to the contemporary J.C. Penney shopper reader. 'Seed catalogues will be arriving toward the end of the month. Their pages will be illustrated with many new and better offerings to brighten homeowner anticipations, but according to the $30-million seed-packet industry, gardeners are so SUBURBAN that their habits of buying their old reliable varieties—zzzzzinnias just one example—are often hard to break.'

This is the English Elm of Washington Heights. Close to 200 feet tall and at least 300 years old, it was planted on the original Morris Estate, some remnants of which can be found a few blocks to the south between St. Nicholas and Edgecombe Avenue. (This is also the site of the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the oldest house in New York City.)

As a New York Times blog post from 1901 informs us, Washington Heights was once home to many historic trees, including an aged willow 'of enormous girth' at St. Nicholas Place, 13 gum trees planted by Alexander Hamilton (one for each of the original colonies), and a large number of Egyptian cypress trees originally intended for the Tuilleries Gardens in Paris but purchased from Napoleon I—then about to get his ass kicked at Waterloo—by Stephen Jumel and planted 'on his grounds and around his house.'

The English Elm is the last living member of this group. That it has survived is somewhat miraculous, given that—again quoting the 1901 Times blog—'[c]ity life is not healthy for trees [and] their existence has been hampered continually and has been sacrificed to the advance of municipal improvements. Underground excavations can be as fatal to a tree as the woodman's axe, by the unavoidable destruction of roots and the curtailment of space for them to grow in. The roots may also become asphyxiated by leaking gas and the result in time will be the death of the tree. Electric lights in close proximity to trees is said to be detrimental to their health.' Not to mention high winds and lightning!

I walked past the tree recently and spent a few minutes discussing it with a man nearby sweeping the walk. 'Did you know that George Washington slept under this tree?' he asked.

'I didn't,' I said, although the story seemed plausible, given that George is known to have watched Manhattan burn from the Morris-Jumel mansion, where he was headquartered during some portion of the Revolutionary War.

I recommend driving if you can, so that you can spend a few extra minutes touring through the surrounding neighborhood, where it's depressing fun to fantasize about owning a house (preferably modern, with Hudson River views and a chlorine-free pool) in what is known as 'The Estate Section of Riverdale' (The Bronx). What you will immediately notice is that Wave Hill—even in the parking lot (pictured above, with an impressive array of pink daylilies)—has successfully avoided a slump. Try not to be jealous!

We first went to the flower garden, where we admired the many dahlias in bloom.

Stephen cautioned me against confusing dahlias with zinnias, which can sometimes look kind of similar! (I'm pretty sure the flower below is a dahlia, but a really cool purple one.)

After drifting in and around the 'alpine house' and the wild garden—more on that at a future date, perhaps—we went to the water garden, which according to the Wave Hill web site is 'at its best in late summer through the fall, [with] highlights including water lilies, lotus and other aquatic plants.'

We admired a Nymphaea 'Peach Glow' (or Hardy Water Lily cultivar).

The Nymphaea tetragona 'Rubra' (or Pygmy Water Lily) also impressed.

As did the variegated lily pads.

Time passed, and because Wave Hill never feels crowded or 'touristy' we were hardly bothered by the many children and their non-homosexual parents, even the two mothers we overheard aggressively comparing their daughters' less-than-ideal behavior. 'I just wanted to apologize for ____'s meltdown,' said one as we waited in line to buy iced coffee. 'Oh that's nothing,' said her friend, 'wait until you hear what ___ is like when I tell her we have to leave.'

Eventually we made it to the sunflower patch, which according to a sign was planted as part of a crop rotation in lieu of squash and pumpkins.

'Sunflowers provide a glorious show in the late summer,' the sign informed us, 'and this planting of more than eighteen varieties should more than make up for the lack of pumpkins.' Who could argue?

Before we left, we walked under the arbor facing the river, where we spotted two women in Adirondack chairs doing the crossword puzzle together. We could not help but speculate that they were a couple who after living together for ____ decades were still able to find pleasure in each other's company on a Saturday afternoon. Such is the magic of Wave Hill, even in August.

We returned home and were pleased to find that with new eyes, our own garden seemed a little less tired in the late-summer heat.

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, "The Metropolis Case," will be published in 2010 by Crown.

You can buy it at pretty much any nursery, although be careful not to get large-leafed varieties, which look like car accidents spilling over the rocks (and not in a good way).

The speedwell in our garden is always one of the first plants to emerge in spring, with bright lemon-colored leaves that exude a sense of optimism I find entirely necessary to endure the torments of April (the cruelest month, as T.S. Eliot famously—and from a gardening standpoint, correctly!—observed).

This state lasts until early June or so, when the plant displays adorable white blooms above a carpet of tiny leaves.

But then, before you can accuse it of being too garish—of perhaps being a bit too sunny and idealistic, especially here in the hardscrabble city—the yellow tone gives way to a more subdued and sophisticated shade of lime that carries it through the rest of summer and into the fall.

As with many alpines, especially the creeping varieties, there is real pleasure—or at least comfort—to be found in growing large swaths of such a small thing, as if such a display justifies one's own obsessive inclinations. Which is not to say I recommend letting it run rampant; to the contrary, I find it looks best when carefully trimmed and shaped, so that it abuts neighboring plants like countries on a map.

If I'm drunk enough, to watch this plant change form and color makes me think about our own trajectory through life, the way we so often love something for a little while and then leave it for something different, a process that however painful at the time ideally brings us closer to the kind of person we ultimately want to be. Try planting speedwell, and you too may find yourself dwelling on such maturation, and the relief and regret that inevitably arrive with it.

Previously: The Dawn Redwood

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, "The Metropolis Case," will be published in 2010 by Crown.

I first admired the dawn redwood when I was working in Midtown, not far from one of those corporately operated 'public spaces,' in this case managed by the international consulting firm ____, located between Fifth/Sixth Avenues (closer to Sixth if you're looking for it) and 45th/46th Streets. Many days I braved the line at Moshe's Falafel cart and sat with my sandwich under the trees, which added an improbable and comforting grace to the otherwise soulless plaza of polished marble and abstract sculpture.

I can't mention Moshe's without recommending the falafel – especially in 'this economy' – and be sure to get the hot sauce! (You'll want extra napkins though.)

I later visited Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, where my mind was frankly blown by an entire forest of dawn redwoods, something I had fantasized about creating in my Washington Heights garden, notwithstanding the fact that the plot was only 15' by 30'. Ignoring Stephen's sensible advice, I bought a sapling on the sly and planted it in a corner of the yard. Within a few years it was transformed from a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree into a thriving adolescent, perhaps 12 feet tall, with wide, alated boughs that benevolently sheltered Dante—our first stray cat—in rainstorms.

Sadly but predictably, given the manic tendencies of my early gardening efforts, I managed to kill this first tree in the attempt to transplant it in preparation for the construction of our garden walls. But with somewhat more foresight, we bought a new one, and this time a columnar cultivar of the species—'Sheridan Spire'—much better suited to the narrow confines in which it exists.

This one has also grown at least four feet per year and features the same feathery lime-green needles, which thanks to their opposed placement on the branch lends a prehistoric aura to the tree that makes the China story seem more likely than apocryphal. Although as a deciduous conifer it loses these needles each fall, its russet-toned bark provides 'winter interest' and what it lacks in evergreen quality it more than makes up for in the spring, when the new growth appears translucent in the sun.

Last week, I went back to the visit the dawn redwoods in Midtown and was pleased to find them thriving. The plaza, I noted, had been renovated to make way for a 9/11 memorial that resembles a shoji screen placed between two rock facades.

One of the countless security guards told me that photography was forbidden, as if taking pictures of trees had caused terrorists to fly planes into buildings. But rather than argue the point, I smiled and put the camera away. It's hard to be too pessimistic or angry in the presence of something that despite its fragile beauty has existed for millions of years.

As I looked up and sighed a post-9/11 sigh, the trees seemed to benignly acknowledge this idea, as if to say that whatever we have endured, they have lived through much worse.

Previously: Phyllostachys Aureosulcata Spectabilis

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, "The Metropolis Case," will be published in 2010 by Crown.

While I initially managed to overcome this fear while hauling around bricks and dirt and perennials—as if to prove to this spectral audience that I was capable of hard work and thus worthy of the property—I found it impossible to ever relax in the garden. To, say, lounge in a chair with a glass of Irish whiskey and Volume II of The World as Will and Representation, as I had always dreamed of doing.

Three years ago, with a thought to permanently address both issues, and filled with visions of Venetian courtyards—where Stephen and I had just returned from a week spent obsessively photographing decaying facades—we decided to enclose the garden with nine-foot stucco-faced walls. At the south end, we built a grape arbor under which we placed a table and chairs and—to further enhance the illusion of privacy—a large trough in which we planted one of the most contentious plants in the world of gardening: Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Spectabilis,' a—gasp!—running bamboo.

Initially we had hoped to fill the trough with some sort of columnar conifer—one that would preferably grow to fifty feet but not spread more than three or four feet wide—but our research proved that no such plant existed, or at least not beyond the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. We were not oblivious to the perils of running bamboo, whose detractors could be quite fanatical in their hatred. "The bamboo should ONLY be planted in an enclosed, 'containable' area from which this devil-plant can escape," stated one such site, "so BE CAREFUL and BE CONSIDERATE when planting bamboo or better yet, NEVER plant DAMNBOO!"

A Wall Street Journal video segment described (with decidedly Blair-Witch overtones) the bamboo as having 'relentlessly' taken over a small town in Virginia. Somewhat more amusingly, or not, a couple of gay bear/science nerds established that the culms (or new shoots) of Spectabilis have the capacity to penetrate the human body, lending credence to the theory that bamboo has been used as a method of torture by the United States in Iraq China during the Korean War.

Undeterred, we knew that despite the risks, we had to have it. 'Spectabilis' was the obvious choice, given that it's cold-hardy to -10 degrees F (Zone 5), with a maximum height of 25-30 feet and a two-inch diameter. Moreover, it is beautiful: in the words of someone else, its "colors are reversed from the species, i.e., it has bright yellow culms with a green sulcus… Spectabilis is vigorous and rather rare. Like the other forms of the species, this bamboo makes an excellent hedge or screen due to its fast, upright growth."

Like so much else that is vigorous and rather rare, it turned out that Spectabilis was being grown somewhere in New Jersey, about two hours from New York City. We rented a truck and arrived in a rural, windswept area of the state, marked by flat two-lane roads and trailer homes. We bought seven clumps and drove back to Washington Heights, where we planted them in the trough.

It is now the third year of our Spectabilis, and each spring the bamboo has grown higher and thicker. (Incredibly, it is also evergreen.) So far—knock wood—it has not penetrated the cement barrier in which it is contained. It really is quite amazing to see something emerge from the ground and rise 15-20 feet within the space of 30 days or so. I would never advocate the careless planting of bamboo, but if done right, there's nothing quite like it.

These days, I sit in my chair, completely shielded from all eyes, whiskey and Schopenhauer in hand, as I listen to the whispered scratch of the leaves against the wall. Does this plant intend to take over the world, and if so, would it be such a bad thing? I'm almost inclined to say no! Just say the name—Spectabilis!—and you too may be convinced.

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, The Metropolis Case, will be published in 2010 by Crown.

Previously: Corsican Mint!

Predictably, when the plants arrived from Oregon—mecca of nurseries—I was disappointed that the reality did not meet my exalted expectations. It was difficult to reconcile the infinite lime-green terrain of my dreams with the small soggy clumps wrapped in plastic and rubber bands, many with limp, yellowing leaves quite obviously homesick for the motherland from which they had been so cruelly ripped. More promising was the smell; I'm generally not a fan of minty-tasting things, but this was sweeter and not-at-all artificial. It made me want to brush my teeth!

I put it here and there around the garden, and was pleasantly surprised when some of it began to crawl around and over the nearby rocks. Although it suffered a bit in the August heat and died off completely in the snow, it triumphantly reemerged in the spring, and has since maintained a stronghold in the pictured crevice. This year it even has microscopic purple flowers, each one about the size of a pin. They glitter like tiny little stars. (Though I can't help but agree with 'TheDamnMushroom' on Flickr, who wrote: "That's the main thing I hate about my camera—it can't macro for shit. [But the] little purple blooms are there.")

One of the great things about Corsican mint is that it can effectively replicate the highly coveted (at least by me!) 'rock-garden' aesthetic without the heartbreak and melancholy invariably associated with the more temperamental (if admittedly gorgeous) succulents, conifers and mosses, none of which—to give an obvious example—were too pleased by last month's El-Nino induced monsoons (if turning to brown mush is an indication).

Although I haven't tried this myself, I'm sure you could grow Corsican mint quite nicely in a pot; perhaps throw in a rock or two and watch the tendrils slowly 'cascade' over the edges as the season progresses. Like me, you could come home after another sad day in the city and console yourself as you gently caress the leaves of this aromatic marvel and dream of soft Mediterranean breezes belonging to a time and place so much better than our own.

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, The Metropolis Case, will be published in 2010 by Crown.