flock of creative
people … expression was
the need of their souls

In 1958, her job as an editor was coming to a close and this provided her with more time to look about, more time to think about the gardens of her life.

I suspect, though, that the thing that started her off was her discovery that the catalogue makers — the men and women of her dreams — were, in fact, writers.

Expression was the need of their souls.

To an editor of Katharine’s stature, a writer is a special being, as fascinating as a bright beetle.

Well, here in the garden catalogues, she stumbled on a whole new flock of creative people, handy substitutes for the O’Haras, the Nabokovs, the Staffords of her professional life.

From the introduction to Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katherine S. White.

The introduction is written by E. B. White.

The book is a collection of essays about gardening that Ms. White wrote over a span of years.

After her passing, her husband, E.B., arranged the essays into a book.

Frustrating as it is to read essays about gardening when one lives in an apartment, I still enjoyed the book very much.

Frustrating as it is to read essays about gardening when one lives in the low country of South Carolina where the colors of spring are all shades of green.

I admit I got spoiled living for a time in Atlanta.

No one mentions it much but Atlanta is in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.

Here in the low country I am about 6 feet about sea level and that sea is just a few blocks away.

Atlanta is at just over 1,000 feet above sea level and the colors of a north Georgia, mountain springtime can hold their own with any fall colors I have ever enjoyed in Michigan where I grew up.

But down here, everything is just … green.

With the salt air, flowers have problems and while banks of petunias and buttercups manage and azaleas show up for a couple of weeks, for the most part, the salt marsh leaves a lot of color out of its presentation.

Back to the book, there is that introduction by Mr. White.

His bit about his wife’s struggle to write.

Writing, for her, was an agonizing ordeal. Writing is hard work for almost everyone: for Katharine it was particularly hard, because she was by temperament and by profession an editor, not a writer. (The exception was when she wrote letters. Her letters — to friends, relatives, contributors — flowed naturally from her in a clear and steady stream, a warm current of affection, concern, and eagerness to get through to the mind of the recipient. Letters were easy. How I envied her!) But when she sat down to compose a magazine piece on gardening, faced with all the strictures and disciplines of formal composition and suffering the uneasiness that goes with critical expression in the public print — this was something else again. Gone was the clear and steady stream. Katharine’s act of composition often achieved the turbulence of a shoot-out. The editor in her fought the writer every inch of the way; the struggle was felt all through the house. She would write eight or ten words, then draw her gun and shoot them down. This made for slow and torturous going. It was simple warfare — the editor ready to nip the writer before she committed all the sins and errors the editor clearly foresaw.

I get the occasional note about these essays that I work to produce.

Most often I get asked, why don’t I edit them better.

I won’t say I am a writer.

I won’t say I am an editor.

I will say I feel a need for expression.

Maybe not a need for my soul but for some need I guess.

I will also say, I am not going to enter into warfare with the editor over every word.

Then this expression might become work.