Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Tending the Vines: Black Abundance in Eight Plants

Tending the Vines: Black Abundance in Eight Plants

Ajani, Ashia S.

Hardcover

Black American HistoryGeneral SociologyNature Writing

Publisher Price: $30.00

PREORDER - Expected ship date September 15, 2026

ISBN10: 1643264761
ISBN13: 9781643264769
Publisher: Timber Press (OR)
Published: Sep 15 2026
Pages: 272
Height: 0.93 Width: 5.75 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
This standout creative nonfiction debut explores the lives and histories of plants considered nonnative or invasive as metaphors for the Black experience in America.

In Tending the Vines, Ashia S. Ajani illuminates how eight unique plants tell the story of the Black diaspora in America. Each chapter is a deep dive into one plant--including eucalyptus, passionflower, wild mustard, and kudzu--exploring their significance in African tradition, their role through the Middle Passage and Chattel Slavery, and their enduring importance in modern households and communities.

Tending the Vines unpacks the complex rhetorical lives of these plants, most of which have been used as both ugly metaphors for Black incursion as well as powerful symbols for Black liberation. It also highlights the ethnobotanical uses that have sustained displaced populations for centuries. Throughout, Ajani complicates our notions of invasive and belonging, by contextualizing how plants move, are moved, and, of course, move us.

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