Darwin's garden

There was an exhibit recently at The New York Botanical Garden, where they had recreated Charles Darwin's garden at his home Down House in Kent, England. As a European, it was a familiar view with all kinds of old-fashioned northern European garden plants, many of which that grow in Swedish gardens too, but are not so common here. There were giant foxgloves (Digitalis), poppies (Papaver), lark spurs (Delphinium), monkshood (Aconitum), and much, much more. They also had built up one wall of Darwin's house and you could go inside and look out the window over his desk to see the abundant plant life. What was missing was the bees, bumblebees, and butterflies. Since this was inside a greenhouse, pollinating insect life was unfortunately absent and made the garden feel sterile. But the exhibit reminded me of Sweden, and it was lovely.