In 2025, at the urging of writer friends, I launched a newsletter on Substack called Mixed Borders. In early 2026, I ended the experiment. You can read why I did that and more than forty other pieces I wrote for Substack here. New pieces I write for Mixed Borders will appear here, on my web site.
In Mixed Borders, as in most of my writing, personal experience, memory, history, observation and analysis come together to tell compelling stories about the ways our various worlds are colliding; stories that I hope will echo your own; stories that I hope will matter to you. The mixed border is a classic British garden feature, consisting of a variety of plants that hug the contours of a lawn or a walkway or a wall. In the mixed border, species of diverse origins cohabit and mingle. Many hail from the far-flung corners of the planet, collected by the botanists who accompanied European voyages of discovery and conquest. It’s the sort of mélange that horrifies the defenders of today’s national borders, and delights me.
One of the things I wrote for Mixed Borders on Substack was The Garden after Gaza, a series of five meditations on what the garden and gardening in the West after the genocide and utter devastation, including all its gardens and agriculture, of Gaza by Israel. You can read the meditations in the Mixed Borders Archive on Substack, or here: