A GARDENER'S VIEW

Do you garden?   Why?

Unless you grow food as part of survival, or raise cash crops and harvest and reproduction are the basis of your livelihood, then the answer to these questions require thoughtful consideration. 

Ancient Chinese, the first gardeners to intentionally transform their outdoor environment, created gardens to seduce the gods. Their thought process went “ if I make this garden beautiful enough, or enough like the place where the gods live (Garden of Eden? No, that’s the Christian version. Chinese thought the gods lived in the mountains, hence the imitation of clouds, mountains, lakes in oriental gardens.), then the gods will want to stay here with me and since they live forever, they’ll let me live forever too! 

Clever those old Chinese! They were looking for life everlasting and that’s a great answer to my original questions. Planting an oak tree or gingko or giant sequoia is a nod toward immortality. These and other great trees live several human lifetimes. Otherwise, those of us who require instant gratification plant fast growing weed trees and let’s face it, they are mere chachkas - landscape junk.

I garden because I like balance and composition and I try my very best to impose my idea of both in my environment. (And sometimes yours! I get into trouble with that one. I have a little trouble with boundaries.)  

I am not a plant collector; many gardeners are. They can’t resist including a new/unusual/exotic to their growing banquet. There is never too much or too many; you collectors will always find a place - even inches! - for one more little beauty. (Enter the Victorians and their lust for exotics from around the world - the age of botanical exploration. And now, the inner net provides the world view and world market for plant collectors. It's much easier than bankrolling a two year excursion to some tropical paradise. And Federal Express guarantees 24 hour delivery from even the remotest destination.)

Nor am I a specialist.  If you are, you now own hundreds of varieties of a single plant (and can name them all!) -  day lilies, peonies, hostas, ferns, or roses. You transformed your “garden” into “laboratory."  I happen to think your gardens are a bit boring - a one note samba? - but a specialist soon becomes the go-to person in their field and that's another good answer to "why" garden. 

No.  For me,  gardening is all about control and domination and aesthetic taste - mine.   But even a control freak like me begins with some rules and limitations: perspective, color, texture, climate, soil conditions, and space limitations.  

So I travel around the country scouting other gardens and meeting like-minded people who have staked out their patch of sacred ground.  We all wring our hands and lament the things out of our control: lack of rain, too much rain, ALWAYS those dreadful-awful-nasty deer/rabbits/groundhogs/chip monks/squirrels/birds sometimes/the neighbor’s cat/ the latest invading armies of beetles/ imported weeds that nobody knows how to control….the list is longer than gardening history!

We knew before reading the latest scientific news that trees communicate with each other (stranger than science fiction - look it up), that home grown is healthier than store-bought, that weeding is mentally therapeutic and that our mothers were right and sharing plant cuttings and seeds with each other forms a bond like no other.

We are a family of strangers connected by this shared interest.

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I have a new app on my smart phone thanks to my dear friend Beverly. It’s myGardenAnswers. Easy to use and identifies from photo nearly instantly. 

I have another one called leafSnap and it’s a huge pain. Too complicated. Don’t bother.

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Garden Walk Buffalo is always the last week end in July and if you want to be truly inspired by the power of an idea that one couple had in 1993, go to the web site and read the history of this event that now includes free tours of over 400 gardens in Buffalo neighborhoods.  Power to the People - Power to Gardeners!