The garden in October.

One hates to pull up a plant that seems to be thriving, especially when others are struggling. You think it somehow contradicts some vague Taoist “go-with-the-flow” principle.  Are you imposing your will over something wild, refusing to see the beauty in nature’s choice, insisting on your own design rather than embracing the sacred landscape of happenstance?

Sometimes you have to look at the garden as a whole. Was that plant really the right choice for that area? Is it taking up all the water or blocking the sun because if its size? Does the whole garden work with that plant there? And then you realize there was never happenstance involved, it was always your design – though not always a good design. Maybe if you were a professional landscape designer, you would know exactly how everything should go together.  But you do your best, you read the labels and look things up and then throw up your hands a say, “What the hell, let’s give it a shot.”  Sometimes you get the fabulous Rosemary shrub that doubles as a Christmas tree in winter, or the Iceberg roses that bloom almost the entire year.  But you also put that stupid Horsetail by the fence in the ground instead of a container, and now it’s like playing “whack-a-mole” trying to stop the shoots from spreading.  You chose the Wallflower and didn’t realize it would grow so tall.  So you have to make hard choices.  Pull out plants so you can try something else.  Sometimes you have to stop, admit a plant isn’t working for you, the designer, even if that plant is growing like, well, a weed.  The harmony of the garden as a whole demands that you remove those plants, learn from your mistakes and begin again next spring.  For the winter though, the ground may have to lie fallow.

Sometimes you are the one who has changed.  Once you may have enjoyed spending every Sunday deadheading and pruning and weeding.  But now your back aches, you’re tired from work, the heat makes you weak, and you have other projects you want to spend some of your Sundays on.  Maybe the Coreopsis with its endless demand for deadheading just doesn’t inspire you as it once did.  Change requires assessing what is no longer working for you – you as a whole – and pulling the discordant shrub out by its roots.  And as you rediscover the Butterfly iris and Society garlic you’d forgotten you’d planted ( because they were hidden behind the overgrown Lavender), you catch yourself discussing your plans with your long lost friends.

We’ve tried that lavender there and it grew too big; let’s try columbine and African daisies (because we tried them elsewhere and now we know how big they grow). Maybe even some succulents. And now that we know wire grass grows in that part of the garden, let’s take the time to put down that weed mat to control it. But maybe we’ll cut holes for the dianthus (instead of pulling it out) because it really is just perfect there.

The garden looks a little more tidy, and if it is a little spare, we can spend the winter planning for the glorious new mistakes we’ll make next spring.

Though we may be paying for that Horsetail for a while.

A space for contemplation and playing in the dirt.

Spring is here. The tulips are pushing their way up to the surface, the dianthus and candytuft are in bloom and the Pride of Madeira has sent up its spikes, ready to give another dazzling display of purple splendor. Spending Sunday afternoons in my garden allows me to reconnect to the little girl who likes to play in the dirt, talk to the flowers and believes she can change the landscape of her world.

The gardener’s path.

I don’t have much experience gardening; I read a little, I plant lots of things and I note my mistakes from year to year. There are several kinds of mistakes you can make in your choice of plants. Sometimes you engage in magical thinking, “I know I live in southern California but I really love English cottage style so I’ll just see if I can make these plants grow here.” Sometimes plants surprise you, and grow where all reason says they shouldn’t. But not most of the time. Most mistakes are self-correcting – the plants simply don’t survive. Some mistakes involve little tiny plants that grow into behemoth bushes that take up half your garden. You have to decide whether to accept the plant at that size (embracing it in all its glory), remove it entirely or attempt to prune the behemoth back to its allotted corner of the garden (knowing full well you will have to whack it back again and again – assuming it survives your pruning). For some reason I can’t quite fathom, this phenomenon reminds me very much of marriage.

Most choices are correctable. But just as in life, there are some choices you make that are forever going to plague you. Putting a horsetail plant in the ground (and not in a container) before you realize it’s an invasive species means you will forever be pulling stray shoots out of random places in the garden. You could try to remove the plant altogether, but the damage is done, and you’ll never totally be free of it. Some choices are just like that.

The “Pride of Madeira” needs a LOT of space.

Your garden doesn’t exist on an island. You are forever connected to your neighbors through the dandelions that spread like wildfire from one lawn to the next. There is always that one rundown house, with all the weeds growing in it, that you curse when you see the same weeds pop up in your own garden. “If only they would take a little care with their yard,” you think. But as you sit in the dirt pulling out the weeds, and listen to the bees peacefully pollinating your lavender, you have leisure to ponder the reasons behind your neighbor’s neglect. Perhaps they are older, and too poor to hire someone to care for their yard. Maybe they have so many children they are overwhelmed and can’t be bothered with a few dandelions. Or maybe they are just very, very sad, and can’t see the point of pulling out weeds that will only come back again and again. You wonder if you should offer to help. You wonder if that would be weird. You wonder that you live in a time and place where you don’t know your neighbors well. You resolve to walk your dog a little slower past their house next time, just in case they are out and you can say hello.

It’s spring in the garden.