Word: garden
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Despite the indignation they cause, the younger, greener gardeners are gradually learning their lessons. Those who originally bought perennials in the mistaken belief that they were less work, that one just tucked them in the ground and watched them bloom year after year, are now coming to appreciate them for their variety and texture. They are discovering the thrill of syncopation, when they manage to persuade a garden, through careful choice and planning, to bloom in waves from March through the first frost...
...roses because I once had a passion to create a rose garden. I had a vision of something sheltered and beautiful and serene. I spent several years planting and nourishing these wonderfully named creatures -- Etoile de Hollande, Mister Lincoln, Duchesse de Brabant, Chrysler Imperial, Peace -- in a secluded spot among the oak trees that shadow the southern side of my house. I worked, I weeded, I watered, I fertilized, I pruned, I sprayed, I decaterpillarized, and I fondly admired what I had created (God and I). In 1971 I even wrote a little book, The Rose Garden. But to anyone...
...committed the original sin of gardening, thinking I could impose my own will on my garden, thinking I could compel roses to grow in the shadows of oak trees. Believe me, you might more usefully invest your time in making water run uphill. Since I loved my oak trees and my roses equally -- and since only a large saw could give the roses their place in the sun -- I decided to let nature take its course, which is a political act. Charles de Gaulle once said that the secret of political success is to foresee what is going to happen...
Remember, in short, that gardening is quite different from farming. The function of farming is to produce crops, food; the function of gardening, if it has one, is to delight the planter. Farming is essentially commerce; it exists for gain. Gardening is essentially art; it exists for itself. While the 20th century has turned farming into agribusiness, gardening rejects most of modernity's most cherished values. "More" and "faster" have little place in the garden, not to mention cost efficiency or the bottom line. It is to escape such things that one began digging...
...first law of gardening is not speed or efficiency but patience. Everything will come in its own time; just as spring follows winter, the first ! crocuses the first thaw. This is not an easy law to learn for people who think that everything can be bought. In the garden, virtually nothing can be bought, except a good shovel and good seeds, and time follows its own imperative. The second law, more subtle but no less important, is the value of proportion, of balance, what the French call mesure. Ideally, any gardener would like to serve nature, to participate and share...