Solace in the Garden

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/letters/gardens.html

Version 0 of 1.

To the Editor:

Re “The Healing Power of Gardens,” a posthumously published essay by Oliver Sacks (Sunday Review, April 21):

Gardens have a calming and also exhilarating effect on me, too. I frequently spend hours traveling from Brooklyn to visit the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Besides seeing the flowers, grass and trees, I especially love the Native Plant Garden and going in the woods in my wheelchair. The garden restores my soul like no other public place.

I have a little garden at home and I delight in seeing each plant bloom in spring. As a teenager growing up in Minnesota, I couldn’t understand why my mom was so thrilled about trees sprouting leaves and spring plants growing anew.

“It happens every year, Mom,” I’d say. Now I get it. Whew, another winter is gone, and I’m alive and enjoying outdoor plants again.

Jean RyanBrooklyn

To the Editor:

Oliver Sacks’s article is a reminder of simple places where we can find peace in these troubled times. Many people go into gardens where they can find order and where things make sense. Here in South Carolina, the crepe myrtle and the azaleas are in full bloom, and all is right with the world.

Thanks to Cicero for the reminder: “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

Roland Nicholson Jr.Charleston, S.C.