garden rant

Do We Really Need To Dumb Down Gardening?

August 22, 2013 by Ilona Erwin

Putting Everything On The Level Of Garden Catalogs

Do we really have to hype gardening with lots of meaningless superlatives? Run on the quests of finding “the latest trend”? Or promote that everything in gardening can be “made easy”?
I know we pander to marketing ploys as writers, everyone hungry for that scrap ( or maybe boatload) of internet traffic, but is that really what the art of gardening in all about?

It isn’t what drew me in, so many years ago. And it isn’t what caused me to devour many great garden books, books which challenged me to try to reach further than the grasp of my present skills. I did fail quite a bit, but I also experienced some seasons of sublime beauty.

I delved into nature in a way that widened my grasp of history, sharpened my understanding of science, and best of all, drew on all my artistic skills to attempt something creative. All inspired by garden writing.

The surprising thing is that much was done without the aid of multitudes of photographs.

I’m not mourning the proliferation of beautiful pictures of high moments in a garden. I love those photos more than the average person. My imagination thrives on such celebrations of the all too ephemeral perfections of times when fresh blooms and the slant of light combine with just the right atmosphere to capture times all gardeners at some point experience. We revel in the photographs because the actual moments are often too few. Or at least they always seem too short.

But a false presentation that it is easy to achieve that “success” by this or that method is to dumb down gardening. It might sell more plants and books, but it can never deliver the passion of making a garden. That is left to a combination of revelatory experience, the tutelage of a gardening mentor, or the spark from writing that draws us into the whole of the endeavor- the way the garden itself catches us in a net of beauty, fragrance, and imagination.

This Mendocino. California garden grows flowers in abundance that would not thrive in my mid-continental climate. Our gardens here tend naturally to be sparser and more focused in season, unless heroic efforts are made to the contrary. This yard is filled with golden Marguerites, fronted by what looks to be Crocosima. The strange blue blossoms in the background- might they be a type of Hebe?

Yes, I know It Is Non-fiction

Like everyone else, I am interested in skill sets and solutions. Not everything needs to be “high art”, but I am reminded of a conversation with my husband the other day. We were talking- reminiscing, really, of our youth and interests with one of our daughters. We laughed about how we now love history, but our high school history teachers managed to make it supremely dull to learn of wars, treaties, and a long litany of names. Until he remembered a specific teacher who had ignited his interest one semester; then that memory even so many years later lit up his eyes. A teacher who created the high drama of Bolshevik maneuvering, the villainy of Stalin and the gory details of such times came alive in his memory.

Okay, so it wasn’t what would have caught my own interest, but it became indelibly inscribed on a teenage boys memory, perhaps laying dormant for a time until history once again inflamed his interest.

I think that is what gardening and the telling of it, the writing of it, should aim to do. I believe that is what the best garden writers have always done: brought the high drama of the natural world, discovery of its secrets, and celebration of its mysteries and myriad beauties into our hearts and minds with well executed displays.

Not Everyone Is an Expert

I will be the first to admit to my lack as a photographer. It isn’t just my equipment, either. I take photos because it is an important part of a blog. Blogs cannot portray what is necessary, either in thought or to hold interest with words alone. Luckily for me, people are pretty forgiving with the less than perfect picture, and I have watched some of fellow bloggers become true artists with their cameras. They are experts in giving us a record of the high moments of a plant, a time of the day, a particular flower arrangement, and I love that.

But we each have something that we are expert at, or becoming expert at… and sharing that keeps the topic sharp and interesting, the very antithesis of “dumbing down”.

My garden has sometimes succeeded, often failed, in becoming what I had worked towards, imagined, and desired, but it has kept my life filled with wonderful moments, some that can never be caught in a photographed, or even properly painted with words. It is that “song of the garden” which speaks to me, which washes over my senses and soothes me with its fragrance, excites me with its surprises, that has made me a gardener. That is also what I would like to share with the world, so they can find their own discoveries and revelations, while we at times vibrate to the same sounds and partake of that fellowship that nature offers us.

It really is more than mulching, or being the buzz word interest of the moment. It is something transcendent , and I think we have a call of sorts to translate that when we share our gardens. I don’t want to be seduced into flattening the experience of it, or misrepresenting either the pain or pleasure of it. Life surges through nature, and we distill some of that into our practice of gardening , making of landscapes, or merely collecting favorite plants that give us joy. It isn’t “the right way to garden”, or the sum of rules or pressing environmental issues, it is something of the life force that surrounds us all. we get to participate in a grand experiment of growing things , watching things grow, and wondering at how that attracts all sorts of other beings into our sphere.

It can be hard work, sometimes heartbreaking work, but it is also something that heightens our sense of what we are, and what our world is.

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© 2013 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.

What’s Wrong With Gardening Today?

February 16, 2011 by Ilona Erwin

You may love gardening and think there is nothing wrong with it. That would have been me. Little did I think when picking up a book that appeared benignly similar to most books of its kind, that I would happen upon some thoughts that deeply expressed the way I view gardening. Now, after all these years.

The expression of this started out general enough:

“The single most essential element in any garden is not some particular object, plant, or tool. What’s vital is the gardener who loves it.”

It almost seemed like an inane thing to say …why, it was obvious wasn’t it? Until, like many profound things, the initially obvious became the core from which the whole had moved far from; and the dawning insight outlined the actual situation. Gardening has become displaced from the gardeners and their love of the wonderful world of plants.

When was the last time we understood that we the gardeners are the most essential part of our gardens? Doesn’t that seem like environmental heresy? Like some hearkening back to ancient and mistaken thinking? A pre-Galilean gardener-centric way of thinking?

Our problem:

“The garden has become a product, a home-improvement project, a look. … Gone… is the ongoing process and relationship gardeners seek and enjoy, as gardening becomes a goal-driven activity with the desired end product a garden once installed should be maintained with minimum of effort and involvement.”

We are so inculcated with these ideas that we might be wondering “Is that a bad thing?”

It is an imbalanced thing, which as gardeners we know can be a bad thing.

The book I have been reading is “Plant Driven Design” by Scott and Lauren Ogden. This post is not a book review which I hope to do soon, but some commentary on the ideas.

Ideas, which are almost “eureka” in character. A type of synthesis involving many ideas of how we approach nature and how we garden, along with many garden philosophies that we have absorbed in an almost osmotic way from books, magazines, and public examples.

Garden has fashion, but it is not fashion, and the idea that your garden could be trendy is just the sad example of how far away we have strayed from being in touch with the earth. I want to get back to the garden, literally, and in my writing about it, too.

That message, that the gardener and the relationship to the plants is so important, is buried within some of the ideas of the truly great gardeners, as well.

The iconic name that conjures up reverence is surely Gertrude Jekyll, and who seems to have molded the garden more to design than she? Yet, if you read one of her famous statements, and if you are familiar with her writings it is apparent how much the plants themselves, and the delight of intimacy with them and their cultivation took precedence for her. The quote cited by the Ogdens:

“The first purpose of a garden is to give happiness and repose of mind, which is more often enjoyed in the contemplation of the homely border … than in any of the great gardens where the flowers lose their identity and with it their hold on the human heart and have to take a lower rank as mere masses of colour filling so many square yards of space.”

We have taken her advice of planting in drifts to extrapolate into big blocks of “color” with a Mondrian-like impersonality of shape rather than the individual traits of the plants.

We, then, have lost touch with those aspects of nature that can humanize our existence and instead have mechanized everything into patterns and recipes and methods.

All good and well for beginning our concepts (like coloring book pictures help us to understand what something might elementally look like), but not the best for enjoying the beauty of the interplay between us, our plants, and our homes.

We are reducing the process too much, too completely, and losing sight of what makes a garden such a wonderful part of our lives: the interaction of us with nature, and with the plants themselves.

I have spent many hours of reading, implementing, and thinking of gardening in terms of design -the William Robinson to Piet Oudolf views, that I dropped the more intimate and satisfying aspects that are obvious in the writings of some of the garden essays of earlier times. Why do we love Louise Beebe Wilder or Celia Thaxter? It is the resonance we feel with their love of their own gardens, the plants and their growth, appearing like old friends during their expected seasons.

I do believe, if we knew to look for this fascination with plants and love for the making of the garden in every garden writer or guide, we would find it. I believe, further, that it is resident in some way in all of us. To find that part that answers to the beauty of the creation inside us is our profile as a gardener.

I now have found an expression of what I would call my own garden philosophy. A new favorite book, and as I read through it and absorb its lessons, I hope to give a future review so others may think about how this all fits with their own views and experience.

So, exactly what is wrong with gardening today?

It is seen as a set of projects instead of an occupation and pleasure.
Results in overuse of inappropriate plants and disappointed gardeners (especially “would-be” gardeners)
A loss of the unique in gardens and in the genius(spirit) of a place
A disconnect between people and nature
Boring sameness in uninspired neighborhoods, people’s loss of interest in making a garden.
Poorly grown, little understood plantings.

We think by presenting gardening as something easy, mindless, and trendy that we will interest more people in doing it. That isn’t what interests people. People want those qualities in something viewed a drudgery and obligation. Not something that they will willingly, even sacrificially, take time out for. They reserve those efforts for something they care about that create a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment.

What can we do differently:

Present gardening as a challenging, but rewarding activity ( which it is)
Be truthful about gardening: no instant gardening, no “easy,no work” gardening, or promises of one that will seemingly take care of itself.
Share the wealth of our plants and plant knowledge, encourage wise gardening methods for good results.
Have more fun in our gardens- laugh more, compete less. Generally this will make our lives better, why not our gardens?
Let the good of the gardener and the plants come first.

October State of the Garden

October 11, 2003 by Ilona Erwin

It is a beautiful autumn day. Sunshine, clear skies, and changing foliage, warm with gentle breezes. A beautiful day.

October, and Where Are All the Flower Bulbs?

I went to the stores (several) looking for crocus bulbs and bone meal. This is the height of the bulb planting season, right? All the fall planting areas are replaced with premature Christmas gunk. I am unhappy. Even the plant store… I paid full price for what they had left….while their sales people were busy stocking shelf upon shelf of Christmas gewgaws. I will try another store later, on my way to another errand, but isn’t it ridiculous to find no flower bulbs in the middle of fall?

Garden Chores Accomplished

On a brighter note, I finally planted the Iteas with the help of my husband. I still feel weak from being so sick, so he did my digging for me. 🙂 Maybe he can apply for full time! I finally decided on placing them near the sweet gum trees, since they both have gorgeous fall color and need more acidic type of amendments ( like ironrite), etc.

State of the Garden Report

More good news is the combination of fall color in the fringetree/viburnum combo. Bright yellow and dusky red. Very nice.

The bad news in the garden is the condition of my Frasier firs. I hope they live, but they are yellowing and losing needles. Remind me not to curse the county engineer and his crony the ditch manager who cut deep into the tree rootline ( unnecessarily) and then refilled with worst possible slimy, clay, refuse dirt they could have found in three counties. Remind me…ok? …… After I talked to them and was promised the moon. And that’s not all of their nefariousness, but I don’t want to think about it right now.