AOW 3

News From the UndergroundGarden Design Magazine

Michelle Owens:

In addition to writing a gardening book and publications about gardening for O, The Oprah Magazine, Garden Design and Organic Gardening, she is co-author of three nationally best-selling business books with former John Hancock CEO David F. D’Alessandro. She was also a former speech writer for Governor William F. Weld of Massachusetts and later Governor Mario Cuomo of New York.

Summary:

Until recently, gardeners and researchers had limited knowledge of how plants function and communicate beneath the soil’s surface, but recent research has revealed a world that scientists call “humbling and strange”. The previous assumption, that roots have largely mechanical functions that allow the plant to suck nutrients or store food, is now replaced with a new knowledge of an underground communication system. Compared in the article to the Internet, it is filled with alliances, either exclusively between plants or with other bacteria and microbes, and chemical defense mechanisms. Previously believed that these qualities were due to plant DNA, it is now largely attributed to bacteria. Due to these findings, it is now believed that new technology in pesticides and fertilizers may be more detrimental than helpful.

Analysis:

Context, Rhetorical Devices, Purpose – achieve purpose? , Audience,

The piece was not only captivating, but fascinating, and a huge reason was the style in which it was written. The author wrote the article as one would write a novel, giving human characteristics to the roots and bacteria. Although her audience is largely those who are interested in gardening or landscape design, it still contained a huge appeal for me. Gardening has recently taken enormous strides with new pesticides, growing methods, and fertilizers. However, the purpose of the article was to show the complexity and highly efficient manners in which these plants manage to accomplish these jobs on their own. As a gardener herself, she tries to convey the message that perhaps the best gardening technique is to simply plant the right things together and supply nutrients, letting the plants handle the rest on their own. For myself, at least, the purpose was certainly accomplished and I am almost afraid that even walking on this delicate ecosystem will destroy something that seems so fragile.

While at first the article seemed filled with logos, in fact the writing went much deeper. She began with a refutation, stating the common misconception that roots serve a fairly simple purpose. Afterwards, she jumps in with new scientific findings, each statistical fact followed with a parallel to our life. For example, “so rich with chatter, unexpected alliances, and surprising act of aggression that some of them compare it to that other great marketplace of communication, the Internet.” While what follows is factual, at the end she changes gears and conveys that the entire “culture” in gardening my be fundamentally flawed, and after so much complicated language concludes with how this applies to the reader: the job of gardening may have just gotten easier.