Tending the Vines

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 8 unique plants can help tell the story of the Black diaspora in this country. Each chapter is a deep dive into one plant, including eucalyptus, passionflower, wild mustard, pokeweed, and others. It traces the plant’s significance in African tradition, through its role in the Middle Passage and Chattel Slavery, and up to its importance in modern households and communities. It considers 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. And it highlights the ethnobotanical uses of these plants that have sustained displaced populations for centuries. Throughout, Tending the Vines challenges the notion of “invasive species” and the concept of belonging, by contextualizing how plants move, are moved, and, of course, move us.