To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow
Audrey Hepburn
We love the tick of it. We try to control the tock of it. We have carved the whole planet into thirty seven time zones so we can know how many hours before or after Greenwich Mean Time any place is. We talk about gaining time as we travel east, losing it as we travel west. We invented the clock to break time down to seconds, to less or more of a heartbeat. We harangue our transport services for their deviance from improbable timetables. It’s not enough to win a race, we have to time you and compare you with other races, with different people on different days. We apply this measure from birth to death. The woman in the last days of her pregnancy is described as being near her time. The dead and the dying are described in terms of their time (not their life) being up. This obsession with time is the strongest indicator of our desire as humans to control the world round us. Religions all over the world would have us believe they hold the secret of suspending the limitations of time by promising or threatening eternal bliss or damnation if we follow their particular set of God given rules.
No one told a garden about the importance of these time measures. Instead we talk about gardens and try to predict its changes in line with changing seasons in our own particular time zone. The garden clock beats to a rhythm far older than us but one that is built into our being.
Before you put the wellies on take off your watch. Audrey Hepburn asserted that “to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”. To tend a garden is to be patient, to be prepared to respond to its vagaries rather than order its development. Anything that slows you down, that allows you time to think about everything or nothing is good. Never underestimate the benefit of just standing quietly in the garden space. I never talk in terms of doing an hour in the garden or going out to do the weeding, the feeding or planting. My way of assessing what is required is to stroll around in the evening noticing what needs to be done or noting any ideas for change that present themselves. The garden is shaping my time. I’m not one for having the master plan for my space as if nature was put there purely for my domination. I have never been wooed by computer apps that allow me to create full colour gardens from planting to maturity. We have done enough damage as a species with that particular attitude to our environment. It doesn’t need me to continue the trend into my dotage. I would rather stick to the gardening recipe of one part earth, two parts rain and three parts wishful thinking.
A garden should not be an assembly line of predictability. It never demands anything of you and left to its own devices it will go along quite happily by its own rules. Where’s the joy in knowing how it is all going to end up before you turn the first spade full of earth. If you take up gardening as a hobby, remember it is a ‘til death do us part’ type of commitment. There is no time limit. Sun rise and sunset are the only restrictive limits unless you are like an elderly woman neighbour of mine back in England who used to get up at two o’ clock in the morning to water her beloved patch during a hosepipe ban. Nature goes slowly from stage to stage with your help.
The kingdom of plants was there long before us and I suspect will see us out. Let your garden guide your gardening and it will be like a friend you can visit at any time. Trust me, you will thrive together. While you nurture the garden it will nurture you. If domination and control is your thing, then before you have a go at ruling the world try ruling your garden first.
The Scribbler Griffin 