Garden - Something to Do, not Have

 I've started rereading one of my favorite gardening books, American Mixed Border by Seattle-area writer Ann Lovejoy, and here's a passage I liked just as much on second reading.  She recounts showing a landscape architect around her new garden and explaining to him "the developmental stages that were to follow from its raw beginning.  He shook his head sadly and said, 'Ann, Ann, I could make you a garden that looked like something in a week.'  I forbore from the obvious retort, 'Yes, but it would never look any different after that,' and made instead a (vain) plea for process.  For me, a garden is not something to have, but something to do."

A few reactions sprung to my mind.  Like "Why was she so nice to that soulless sell-out?"  And, of course, all of us agree that garden is something we do, not have, like a nice car. And it reminded me of the exquisite expectation we all experience when we put our grand ideas into effect and then have to WAIT LIKE HELL.  Face it, we gardeners are gluttons for frustration, especially the naturally impatient ones like myself.  Take my yearly tulip design, for instance - hatched in May, implemented in November and enjoyed the following May.  Actually that's fast compared to the payback from planting a new hedge or any tree.  My painter friend Lynne volunteered that as much as she appreciates the results, she thinks we're all masochists to wait so long.

Comments

[Alice]

Your first para seems to sum up the idea behind the TV Garden Makeover Shows. At the end of the exercise the recipients HAVE a garden, but it doesn't turn them into gardeners. That's fair enough for those who only want that much, although I wonder what those gardens look like five years on.

[Pam]

I love planting.If my gardens had to stay the way they are right now, as happy as I was with them this season, I would be bored. The thought of new bulbs bursting forth next spring is exciting because I don't remember exactly where I put them for sure the past fall. Digging up clumps of iris this fall and pulling out some of the more common mallow hollyhocks gives me back some of my limited space to try something else next spring. We started with a back yard that was a dirt hill 5 years ago and just added a small water feature/pond this fall which I get to plant around next spring, yippee! I can't imagine sitting here with the same exact gardens 5 years from now.

[djinn]

I love watching my plants grow to fill the spots I put them in.

I am slowing building a mixed shrub/ perennial border. Three or four plants at a go, with lots of time to stand back and look at what the border is doing.

It's currently half planted, and we are in year four... and we've moved five of the shrubs around from their original locations.

To me, the whole game is about process. Dreaming, designing, planting, editing, weeding, watering, watching. I love my garden time.

[Susan]

Well said!

[Gardening crash-test dummy]

I always thought that "pastimes" were to 'pass the time'? Totally agree with you Susan.