This piece originally ran in The Southern California Gardener in 1994; an updated and abbreviated version ran in the Silver Lake Press in October, 2002.
NURTURING NATURE
No doubt about it,
natural-style gardening is on a roll. It's cropping up in every neighborhood,
picking up converts and gaining ground. Its appeal is no surprise. As
our countrysides become more suburban and our parks and forests more civilized,
it offers balm to our sense of loss and speaks to a corresponding need.
We're realizing we
don't have to drive a hundred miles and hike three hours to find a taste
of nature. We can step right into our own backyards.
At least that's the
theory. And a lot of people are buying it. Propelled by a desire to redress
the earth's imbalance or by a quest for spirituality -- or at least by
a good pair of running shoes -- increasing numbers of Americans are trotting
to the nursery and selecting a (bio)diversity of plants adapted to their
gardens' site, soil, climate and so on. They're also buying green lacewings,
ladybugs and angleworms and releasing them ceremoniously to the land and
to the skies.
Although steps like
these are laudable and those new plants lovely as the day is long, some
of you, while sipping pale ale on the back porch, sense that something
still is wrong.
"Where is the poetry,
the complexity of nature? Did I forget to buy the zing?"
The answer, of course,
is that a natural garden cannot be bought. It can only happen over time,
when you allow your plants to mature, live to a ripe old age, decay and
rot.
Rot? Death and decay?
Many of you will gasp, being, after all, the products of American culture.
Granted, this last step to a natural garden is more like a flying leap
and will quickly cull the dilettantes among you from the more serious
adherents of natural gardening -- or as others may call us, the nuts.
But before you decide
you're perfectly happy not to embrace nature (it's okay to just give it
an air-kiss), consider the deeper satisfaction and practical benefits
of a garden that reflects every facet of life. Like the chance to cultivate
a whole new set of aesthetics, starting with an appreciation for the color
brown. The buff brown of an upland meadow against the saturated blue of
a fall sky. The nutty brown of dead oak leaves. The deeper chocolate tones
of a log in the woods as it rots on the forest floor. You see? Brown is
beautiful. Brown is good.
After that, there's
the hurdle of gnarly to surmount, not to mention bent and crevassed. But
these inevitable signs of decline should be easy to swallow. We already
know and love these very qualities in the old trees in our backyards --
the handsome striations in the bark, the old war wounds.So why not bring
more character into your garden by allowing fast-growing subshrubs, for
example, to showcase their age instead of tossing them out after three
years or so -- as most experts advise -- when they begin to lose their
flash? Take that lavender bush of mine on the back terrace. This Lavandula
dentata is fourteen and counting. Over the years, it's settled into the
most harmonious shape, conforming to its situation with sublety and grace.
From its seed I've grown another bush closer to home. I've cut back this
lavender every year for ten years, and by now it's a sturdy survivor.
If I had eliminated these two old plants, I'd be missing great "bones"
in my landscape, not to mention the scented rack where I dry my lingerie.
I have a dusty miller, too, that I've allowed to age and sag, Senecio
cineraria. It doesn't give as many flowers as it used to and hasn't set
seed in some years. But it has assumed the rank of a great foliage plant
(which many gardeners view as the summit of fine gardening), its felty
white leaves still stunning at dusk, its landscape impact doubled by its
shredded bark and looping, sinewy branches. It holds more gardening interest
than a dozen dusty miller young squirts. Not that I have anything against
youthful plants, with their lissome limbs, their upright posture and go-go
vitality. Every garden needs its cheerleaders. It's just that our cultural
preoccupation with youth and the new seems to have unbalanced our gardens
as well as our mentalities, to the point where old flowers are summarily...dead-headed,
and plants past their prime given the boot. While I won't go out on a
limb and say every plant should be allowed to rot, or every flower left
to mellow and ripen its seed, there is a definite beauty to this country
look. And you won't be alone if you appreciate it. Upscale florists regularly
revive the dead-plant look, like the mode for masses of dead grasses.
In your own backyard, of course, old plant material is free -- and its
value is not simply aesthetic. Because when you allow your plants to complete
their life cycle, you're crossing the line between consuming nature and
nurturing it. By doing so, in just a matter of time wildlife will seek
out your garden. If you're a confirmed bird-watcher, let your flax go
to seed, plus your poppies, coreopsis, sage and fennel. You can't go wrong
with heirloom and native plants, and don't forget those grasses. But don't
think that seed is just for the birds. With luck, it may fall to the ground
and germinate. Seedlings that descend from plants in your garden will
be stronger than their store- bought conterparts and much more likely
to resist adversity. Genetically suited to your specific backyard conditions,
they'll need less irrigation, less fertilizer -- less reliance, in sum,
on artificial imputs that weaken your garden's natural integrity. You
may even want to take a gamble with hybrid plants. If they set seed (some
of them will not), their offspring will revert to their open-pollinated
ancestry, with flowers usually more graceful and modest than before and
with the added bonus that -- unlike some of their parents -- their blooms
will always contain nectar accessible to the bees, butterflies and other
insects you want to attract to your garden. By now, your garden will be
coming alive. But the real progress is still ahead, when you let dying
plants keel over on the spot. Sure, you can speed the natural process
along by cutting them down slightly before their time. Just don't pull
them out. Leave the base of their stems and their roots intact to stabilize
and aerate the soil. Clip their other remains into smaller sections and
simply let them drop. In no time at all and with very little effort, voila:
a Grade AA mulch to conserve moisture, protect your soil from temperature
extremes and serve as a natural habitat for lizards, insects, angleworms
and assorted microorganisms which will arrive spontaneously and enrich
your soil for free, by breaking down dead litter into rich, healthy humus.
No more hauling in sacks of top soil and amendments. No more pitch fork
sessions at your compost heap. Isn't brown sounding better by the minute?
Got an old tree stump? Let it decay. Old logs enourage a variety of beneficial
life and provide ideal hibernating spots for butterflies and ladybugs,
which will now stay, instead of flying away, given their more natural
vegetation. Better yet, spare the whole dead tree itself. Read Byron at
its base. Dress in crushed velvet. Yet you don't have to get totally carried
away to see the merits of decay on a grand scale. Hollow trees are a scarcity
in the country these days and make great nesting spots for owls, bluebirds,
even bats, which will repay your largesse with interest by keeping close
tabs on your pest population. And instead of hauling off that pile of
dead brush that all gardeners inevitably accumulate, like dirt under the
fingernails, you might consider just letting it be, as a refuge for furry
species. If it weren't for that brush pile I've so benevolently abandoned
on my back terrace, there probably wouldn't be that family of possums
that parades past our window every night as we sit down to dinner. Who
needs a nature documentary? We've got the real thing, live. Plus these
possums control slugs and snails for encores, and don't stop for station
breaks. I can't deny that the above-mentioned debris lying about your
place can lead to charges that you're untidy, or worse. But you'll learn
to turn the other cheek. Let others spend hours maintaining their Ozzie
and Harriet gardens -- you've got the key to the Secret Garden. At the
cusp of the twenty-first century, there's good reason not to clean up.
A garden that tolerates a little disorder and includes the positive presence
of old age and death is tremendously engaging and therapeutic. And creating
a refuge for yourself and other species is its own reward.
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(c) copyright Elizabeth Stromme. All rights reserved.
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