Romancing the Garden: A philosophy of gardening Pt 1

One of the most basic instincts of many animals, including humans, is to mark and defend a territory. The parrot fish patrols his section of a coral reef, the tiger marks the edges of his range, the moose marks his chosen rutting field. Ants protect their chosen bulls-horn acacias and mankind measures and marks the boundaries of his country and dies to defend them. He builds towns and marks out fields with walls and fences. Even nomadic species have territorial instincts. Elephant families return annually to a treasured sausage tree; migrating birds come back each year to the same nesting area. And just as birds build their nests and defend them from intruders, so do people build houses and memorialize their rights to them with maps and measurements and legal papers.

Once cities and towns are created and wealth is amassed there is time for another basic instinct to begin to display itself, the desire to surround one’s dwelling with a garden, and only man does this. Some animals undertake farming. Birds plant seeds, and in some cases such as when scrub jays plant pine nuts how can we say for sure that these intelligent creatures aren’t creating future food sources?  Ants depend on farming for survival, tending aphid cattle and growing mushrooms underground on leaves, but among animals perhaps only the bower bird can be said to involve themselves in something akin to gardening, though the bower bird’s creations don’t include plants.

Many people who take up gardening suddenly discover they’re hooked on a genuine passion which takes various forms. The first sign of a problem is when the search for new plants becomes an addiction or one simply must have every new and interesting garden tool. Some of the people who get hooked on gardening are looking for something that never quite arrives. There is often a yearning in the hearts of young gardeners and beginning gardeners everywhere for something indescribable they are trying to create, call it completion or maybe perfection, which can never be attained. Each job has its rewards, its moments of triumph but always there is another task ahead, another mountain to be scaled. Perhaps the plan never turns out to be quite good enough, the garden is never perfect enough, and it seems as if there is never a moment when the gardener can sit down and enjoy what they have done because perfection is always out of reach. It becomes the source of huge drive, and eventually if one is lucky the result is a really lovely, an inspired, and perhaps even a great garden. So I ask you,“Do you have a philosophy of gardening, and if so, what is it?”  Judging from the fact that you have picked up this book, I am guessing that you are a person with some interest in gardening. Perhaps you are in the throes of creating a garden for yourself and your family with your own hands and back, and the sweat of your own brow. Or you may be designing or building gardens for others, or hiring people to make a garden for you or for someone else, or perhaps you write about gardens and gardening or make paintings of gardens or simply love to go on garden tours. Whichever of these situations is true for you, finding and knowing your own personal philosophy of gardening can increase your pleasure in gardens and in gardening. It can bring your unique creative abilities into focus.  In this book you will also find ways to bring it to fruition.