The
Senses
Everyone
who creates a garden does so to achieve a certain look. Even
if it's just a couple of azaleas by the steps of a townhouse,
gardeners have something in mind and hope the plants grow into a
hedge to be proud of.
I
seem to be slightly color blind so I'll never see the world exactly
as others do. Building the palette of the landscape will match my
view of the world. It always surprises me when someone walks through
the yard and points out a flower they really like when it looks
ordinary to me. I suspect that no one has perfect color vision and
our preferences are dependent on what filters through to our brain.
How
about the other senses? We all like different foods, so we taste
differently. Vegetable gardeners are trying to get better taste than
they can get from the stores where “traveling well” and “storing
for a long time” are more important than simple taste. Does a
Kurume azalea flower taste better than a Southern Indian? Have you
checked?
For
the last couple of years, rabbits have invaded my back lawn but left
the ornamentals, including the herbaceous ones, alone. Why? I decided
to do a taste test and found that the plantain the marauders were
eating actually was better than the hosta and heuchera they
weren't. Don't duplicate this test. The heucheras were really
bitter. And the leaves need to be spit out after that enlightenment.
Hearing?
I once went on a nature walk along the north rim of the Grand Canyon
and the Park Ranger asked us to be silent for a while, listening to
the stillness. Then, beyond the serenity, to listen to the sound of
the wind. And beyond the wind, to listen to it in different trees and
bushes. They each had their own quality of sound: hissing, sighing
and a lot of sounds we haven't created words for. Quite an experience
which went beyond what I had done before. Surprising, in a satisfying
way. Listen to the wind in your trees and bushes. Listen to the wind
in the pines; it's different than through the oaks. Do the azaleas
discuss the wind among themselves? With your eyes closed, focus on
the aural effect of different parts of your garden. If your garden is
simply the small front yard of a townhouse, local parks can give you
that variety: Green Spring, Meadowlark, Brookside and the National
Arboretum come to mind in the DC area.
Touch?
A branch snapping back and hitting me in the face is no fun. We'll
skip that form of touch here. When I touch evergreen azaleas, they
each are distinctive. Magnifica leaves are tacky. Hard to clean off
my hands. Others, such as Delaware Valley White, have large, dull
leaves, a little hairy and not sticky. The Kurume group show off
small, waxy leaves. If you were dropped into your garden in an
unknown place and put your hand on a plant, would you be able to make
a good guess at which it is? OK, the thorny roses and hollies would
announce themselves. But the others? I can't do that yet but I'd like
to be able to sometime in the future. Beyond azaleas, run your hands
over the bark of different varieties of oaks. The Red Oak group feels
differently than the White Oak group. Maple trees? Red Maple trunks
will not remind you of Snakebark Japanese Maples.
Gardeners
will look for scents in their ornamentals, unless the space is filled
with evergreen azaleas which have almost no fragrance. Fragrance is a
highlight of the deciduous azaleas. So many flowers have a
distinctive odor that they are often bought for that alone. Consider
a new experience: have you knelt in a patch of snow and mud, sniffing
a tiny crocus? The fall crocuses have a slightly sweet smell and will
be different than the spring versions. Remember to try that next
March.
I
had a fantastic sense of smell when I was young. The world almost
spoke to me in odors as much as hearing and touch. I remember walking
down a crowded hallway in 8th grade and knowing a lot of
students and teachers by their “fragrance” as they passed. The
lack of air conditioning back then made this easier. Nowadays, I
guess you could know people by the smell of their brand of
antiperspirant. Unfortunately, I had no real use for such a
super-power (no one stuck an article of clothing against my nose,
asking me to go running through the woods looking for a lost child)
and that ability has now declined to the point where no one will make
a comic book about my amazing gift. What it has done is to give me a
different perspective on smells in the garden. Things that people
like are usually overpowering and unpleasant, such as Paperwhites,
Lilies and deciduous azaleas. The reverse is also true: evergreen
azaleas are thought of as having no scent, but when I put my nose up
to a flower (being careful not to get stung!) there is an odor and it
is different than that of the neighboring variety. And the vegetation
has an odor, even before a leaf is crushed and then sniffed. Our
yards are full of scents.
As
noted with my ability to smell, our senses change over time. Some of
us have worked so much with our hands that they are calloused and
more insensitive to what we touch than the hands of others. Some of
us can hear the high-pitched hiss of the wind in the trees or the top
notes of some warblers. Others (often older, or into heavy metal)
have lost the upper registers.
The point of all the above? When we walk side-by-side
into a garden, we aren't seeing, tasting hearing, touching or
smelling the same world. I wonder what your world is like?
