Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum 'Gateway') is the star of the border right now; it commands attention with its stature and workmanlike beauty. When I first started gardening, I knew next to nothing about hardy plants, and so I planned the layout of and shopping list for the border based on catalog descriptions of height and flower color, making sure to include plants whose names stuck in my head after reading about them—even if the passage told me nothing about what the plant actually looked like. So, with joe-pye weed, from Jamaica Kincaid's My Garden (Book) (pub. info here):
I was taking an indirect route going to the grocery store and I came upon a field of joe-pye weed in bloom. I had recently started bringing mullein into my garden, and when I felt I had enough of those, I started raiding my own field for joe pyes and bonesets. I love these flowers, and when I saw the field of joe pyes, it made me feel so happy and giddy, because it was so unexpected (I had no idea any were growing there). Then, when I got to the store, I heard the woman who waited on customers say to the man ahead of me, "Hi, honey. God, you're beautiful today," and this struck me as untrue, because I had seen the man quite clearly. After he left, I said to her, "What made you say that to that man? He was one of the ugliest men I have ever seen," and she replied, "That was my husband." Retracing my route on the way home, I so blind with humiliation and anxiety and shame that I did not even see the joe pyes.
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