HARMONY in the GARDEN
A Grammy-winning songwriter and budding gardener grow and harvest a tiny experimental plot of land in a Los Angeles neighborhood bonding together a community of foodies.
Text and photographs by DUSTIN BEATTY
/ COMMUNITY SPR UT
For many, the idea of domestic agrarian life sounds sexy. In fact, just the thought of it conjures up temptation. Picking lipstick-red ripe tomatoes from the vine in a backyard raised bed, harvesting dark green, dew-glistened dinosaur kale from a grow bag, gathering fresh spotted chicken eggs, or even keeping bees in a hobby colony surrounded by native plants is something clean food fans dream of.
“I needed to get things in order within myself and I needed to find a way to be outside as much as possible, to be physical and engage with something bigger than myself to help me process,” Cameron remembers. “Gardening seemed like the best thing.”
It’s precisely these visions, a love for food, and a lifetime of curiosity culled from books, films, websites, and a host of other sources, that led gardener Horace Cameron to pursue a passion around plants. The 33-year-old remembers an added tipping point as he fondly speaks of meeting his partner and celebrity florist Yasmine Khatib around the time he was mixing cocktails at Los Angeles’ Edendale, a bar and restaurant housed in an old brick fire station from 1924. “Within a few years of us falling in love, we were living together and I was growing plants in pots and containers on the roof of our apartment building,” he tells The Rooted Journal.
OMETIMES LIFE THROWS OUT some odd curveballs, and Cameron reflects on a romantic time that was also punctuated by the dichotomy of some personal changes that brought his purpose more into focus. “I needed to get things in order within myself and I needed to find a way to be outside as much as possible, to be physical and engage with something bigger than myself to help me process,” he remembers. “Gardening seemed like the best thing. I grew up with [a garden]
ABOVE AND RIGHT: CAMERON AND JESSO JR. IN THE DENSELY PLANTED GARDEN WITH A TOWERING BANANA TREE. LEFT: A NEW REGIONALLY NATIVE PLANT FINDS A HOME AMONG MANY OTHERS.
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ISSUE 01
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