Landscaping
If
you're reading this then you've done at least a little landscaping.
You've
decided to put that plant there and the other one over there.
Someone else might not do it that way. Your garden isn't exactly
your image of the garden of your dreams, but it's a step in that
direction and next year it will look even better than this year.
If
you have the money, would you consider calling in a professional
landscaper and have them do it all for you? If the point of a yard
is to look good for parties and avoid HOA complaints then that's a
good solution.
Do
you enjoy playing the piano? You could hire the local piano teacher
to come play for you, instead. Do you like knitting? You could pay
the knitting shop owner to knit for you and then you wouldn't have
to. But that misses the point.
If
ever there was a perfect example of the old line about how happiness
is the journey and not the destination then gardening is it. I once
read that a garden is never finished. There are new azaleas to enjoy
from our local hybridizers, ferns to move that got too big for their
surroundings, great experiments to dig out that failed to perform as
the catalogs advertised and new collections of colors to enlarge the
pallet. It's never finished (unlike the landscaper who, at some
predetermined point, IS finished).
We're gardening because we WANT to garden. The
process of enjoying gardening is the goal and even tiny gardens with
limited budgets provide that.
We
come home from work after dark and don't have the time or energy to
get out into the yard (though I do have a friend who digs holes and
mixes dirt under spotlights). The items on our checklist become more
numerous. That's why our gardens don't resemble the National
Arboretum. And Barbara Bullock of the NA would quickly tell you
that they, too, could use more help, funding and time.
What
does MY yard look like? Wave your arms to brush away the cloud of
mosquitoes and take a look: over there are all the plants in pots
yet to be crowded into a bed (some with roots escaping through the
drain holes and becoming feral). Just behind that is a huge mulch
pile which, after 5 years, will become the world's best compost.
Empty pots are lying over by the fence because the shed needs space
for tools.
I
once heard the line “If you're not killing plants then you're not
trying!” We don't know if the new plant we just bought will
survive and thrive in the micro-climate by the fence, and if not then
maybe it would if we put it over in the shade by that tree. It's fun
to try and REALLY fun when it succeeds!
Beyond
the idea of dropping a nice plant in the ground, there's the question
of beds. Should they have straight sides or curves? Should there be
a lot of small ones or a few large ones? A mixture? Raised or on
the level with the surface? Bordered by stones, railroad ties or
just overflowing with mulch? Or even a rock garden with slivers of
soil between the stones of the pile, the dirt almost apologetic for
being there?
And
what's in the beds? A variety of genus' or all one species? Plants
from the same hybridizer or multiple people? The same flower color?
The same bloom time? The same funny names (the “Striptease”
series if you're into hosta, the “Confederate” series if
deciduous azaleas are your thing)?
My
beds have a variety of themes: azaleas in a bed all bloom at the same
time, herbaceous beds are a mixture of textures, heights and colors.
Bulb beds are of a type: crocus, daffodil or daylily, which also all
bloom at the same time. I give myself good reasons for my choices
but I'm not sure that those reasons would survive intense scrutiny.
People
like to construct things. Some will build boats or planes in their
basements, knowing that the finished product will be trapped forever.
It's fun building them, anyway. Some knit large projects, some draw
complex pictures, some write garden essays (the least defensible
craft...).
Building
a garden is so satisfying that language is inadequate to describe the
feeling. And yet we're trapped communicating in that poor medium.
Maybe someday when we all have computer jacks in our heads the
feeling WILL be transferable. Until then, we'll just have to do it
to feel it.
Pay
a landscaper to do it for me? I'll be one with the compost pile
before I let that happen!
