Garden chores
Agri-tourism is the last refuge of agriculture
Aren't our gardens assembled fragments of our dreams and daydreams, our memories, images, and visions, remembrances of times past, fantasies, pieces of paradise we try to re-create?
To northern gardeners, this time of year [March] is full of anxious pleasure. Even as they daydream about the botanical pleasures of June and July, ordinary mortals find themselves nearly defeated by the gardening deadlines that pass so swiftly in March. Extraordinary mortals--whose seeds arrived two months ago, whose windows are now full of seedlings, and who are ready to sow peas and carrots the instant the soil thaws--will suffer torments of their own when the perfections they're planning somehow fail to germinate or blossom. A garden is just a way of mapping the strengths and limitations of your personality onto the soil. It would be too much to bear if nature didn't temper a gardener's ambition or laziness with her own unsolicited abundance.
No garden is a natural thing, of course, and people who garden as a way of getting in touch with Nature are actually only getting in touch with fantasy. Gardens are, by definition, contrived.
A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.
The garden and gardener have grown alongside each other over the years, each shaping the other.
She calls herself a 'general gardener' because she grows everything and loves everything that grows.
At such times I understand that the enjoyment of looking is nothing compared with the pleasure of gardening--and that I would much rather garden than have a Garden.
Writing and gardening, these two ways of rendering the world in rows, have a great deal in common.
. . . A bunch of daisies has a peculiarly earthy smell, especially when it comes as a hot little gift in the hand of a child.
I had to remember that I was only the referee, the human being who weeded and pinched back and watched everything grow. If I was patient and paid close attention, perennials would let me know where they wanted to be.
Pruning is an art and a science. The rules are simple, but putting them into practice requires skill and judgment. Looking around, I gather that almost everyone leaves the job to an unskilled yardman with years of inexperience.
But here experience speaks: never be too far away from man or machine until the sweep of the last [Bobcat] blade, for those who have watched these men at work will know about the amazing interpretations of a plan that can occur.
