A Man Named Pearl

Today I went to the Morton Arboretum. Gosh I love trees. In addition to miles and miles of trees, plants, and lakeage they have an awesome library that has books over 500 years old! Anyway they have an exhibit right now called Flora! Illuminated (I know, terrible name) buuut, I'm a sucker for old plant and vegetable prints. So, I went to the website to check out some of the prints and discovered this lovely gem:

I know. I am a cheese for overcoming adversity stories. I won't lie, I have a crush on Pearl and his story makes me feel really warm inside. Especially this quotation:

“Gardening books will tell you that some of these things in my garden can’t be done, but I had never read them when I got started. Not knowing ahead of time that something is supposed to be impossible often makes it possible to achieve. I didn’t have any limitations because I really didn’t know anything about horticulture. I just figured I could do whatever I wanted with any plant I had.”

I'm glad people like this exist in the world.