There are a lot of things I don’t understand

There are a lot of things in my garden that I just don’t understand. And the more I garden, it sometimes feels that this list grows rather than shrinks. The more I learn about gardening, the more there is to learn. It’s a never ending process. And while I wouldn’t have it any other way, it can be a bit frustrating at times.

For example, I have just re-read Dorothy Macleans “To Hear the Angels Sing”. This amazing lady was one of the three original founders of the Findhorn garden in northern Scotland. I met her back in the day when I worked at the Kemptville Ag College and was running some courses there. I convinced her to come and give a talk and a seminar at the college and we filled a gym with interested gardeners. You have to understand that she’s attributes the success of that garden to listening to the voices of the garden devas and following their advice. If the garden deva or energy spirit said to plant peas and feed them with seaweed, that’s what the Findhorn folks did. If the deva of the tomatoes said to plant the tomatoes in this part of the garden rather than that part, then that’s what they did.

Findhorn became famous for the bounty of its gardens. It produced amazing yields of fruit and vegetables in an area where gardening was generally thought to be problematic. The sandy soils and cold temperatures of northern Scotland are not market garden areas but this gorse-infested chunk of land confounded all the experts. And there were many that came to see what the fuss was about and none could explain what was happening on a rational basis. Garden devas indeed!

There is an energy in the garden that both calms us and energizes us when we take the time to sit and think in the garden. Too many gardeners have written me to tell me about how working or sitting in the garden makes them feel better for me to doubt this. But why does this work? What is it in the garden that makes us feel better? Do Dorothy Maclean’s devas work on us when we’re there? Are we communicating with them in some way we don’t know about? Or is it simply that we physically relax in our gardens? And that relaxation gets hormones rolling that make us feel better in some way. I just don’t understand. But I know that this feeling of well-being is shared by just about every gardener I know.

Why is it that that some folks have a green thumb and others a brown or black thumb? Why is it that I can propagate darn near anything I turn my mind to doing and plants seem to thrive under my care. I can ignore a plant and let it dry down and it will recover while another gardener can try the exact same regime and the plant croaks. I like plants. Is that enough? I really don’t understand why some folks can talk to plants and simply understand what’s going on with the plant and others don’t seem to be able to understand that a plant with yellowing leaves, bone dry soil and growing in a closet isn’t a happy plant? Am I listening in a better way to garden devas or seeing something like yellowing leaves in greater detail than other gardeners? Why is it that when I speed up because of the demands of working or living in a modern world that my garden and garden work suffers? If I don’t spend the time with the plants and cuttings, they die or fail to thrive. If I simply check on them once or twice a day, they thrive. Why is this?

I remember walking through the nursery and greenhouses and being able to quickly identify the problem areas and struggling plants just by glancing at them. Sure enough, there’d be aphids or some problem just starting on the plant. I never understood this and in the beginning, I simply assumed that everybody could do this. They can’t. And I don’t understand why this is.

Why is it that some folks seem to assume that plants aren’t quite living things with needs of their own? That plants follow a set of rules determined by Mother Nature. We humans don’t get to set the rules in the garden, we simply get to try to figure out what the rules are; and we call that gardening. The longer I garden, the more rules I think I understand and frankly, the simpler those rules become. But there’s always another lesson that comes along every year. Oh yeah, the fact that I don’t understand is clearly part of the things I’ve learned – he says with a rueful grin.

Something else I don’t understand is why, with the preponderance of scientific data indicating the problems of chemical use in and around the home, that gardeners aren’t taking firm stands to protect the life around us. Ours and our plants. I can guarantee that Dorothy Maclean’s devas aren’t out there promoting the use of chemicals. So why do we allow it when we know that both science and spiritual traditions are against it? I really don’t get that part of the garden at all. The stuff “seems” to work on the surface but almost every chemical used in the garden winds up creating another problem. Spray an insect killer and you also wipe out the good bugs that are eating the bad guys and because the bad guys initially propagate faster than the good bugs, you’re guaranteeing yourself another infestation. Spray any chemical and you’re almost certainly guaranteed to bring it indoors (via spray drift and tracking on clothes and shoes) where it becomes part of your life, and your family’s life.

There are a lot of things I don’t understand so I guess I’ll simply have to keep gardening until I figure them out.