OK, Here’s the intro…

…the reason

for some silly-looking fishes,

for the bizarre mating

of certain adult insects,

or the sprouting, say,

in a snow tire

of a Rocky Mountain grass,

is that the universal

loves the particular,

that freedom loves to live

and live fleshed full,

intricate,

and in detail.

From “Feast Days”

By Annie Dillard

I often wonder what is to become of mankind. We are kind and cruel, sensitive and clueless, creative and destructive, a study in contradictions if ever there was one. Today we teeter on the precipice of environmental collapse and yet few seem able to do anything about it. We flirt with another form of disaster in the endless wars we fight with one another, and we have enjoyed just a handful of years without war in all of human history. Despite the unique imperatives of our moment in time, we go on as if nothing much had changed since the beginnings of civilization, and we seem quite prepared to sleepwalk to our own doom. It’s not a pretty picture. Yet there are so many solutions at hand, and so much good work to be done that I believe if only humanity would turn to the task, things would start to get better fast. I’m a gardener, which means I’m an optimist. Bertrand Russell once wrote, “I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk to my gardener I’m convinced of the opposite.”

What is the role of gardening in such a crazy world? Is there any possible justification in making or enjoying a garden, or in writing or reading about gardens? Despite the fact that I know the happy answer to that question, I have many times despaired over what seemed to be the indefensible nature of my professional life. I don’t know why I have at times allowed myself to wallow in this self-doubt. Perhaps it has been my conscience’s way of keeping me honest by forcing me to question, over and over again, the legitimacy of my life’s work.

After much soul-searching, this is how I see it: Your garden and mine are our personal chunks of nature. They are no longer pure nature, yet they are still part of the natural world. Denuded of their endemic inhabitants, rain still falls on them, photosynthesis proceeds in the leaves of exotic species of plants, odd foreign animals gambol about. The garden is at once our shame, our legacy, our pleasure pit, our little protectorate.

For the most part, gardens are made and maintained very badly. The reasons for changing that are many. In the context of global crisis one obvious and primary one is the restoration of some degree of order, sustainability and ecological sanity on a yard-by-yard basis. If that were all we could do, it would be enough.

But a garden is also a refuge, a sanatorium for weary spirits, a bit of personal agriculture, a place of joy and a thing of beauty. Those are all important too, for without healthy bodies and spirits we have nothing. When the world outside looks grim, we can always turn to the garden for nourishment, peace, and safety.

The garden, then, can be the place where we practice personal and planetary healing. As Annie Dillard says, the universal loves the particular. Use the information in this blog to delve into the particulars of gardening and of your garden, and to bring the full-fleshed richness of life to it and to you. It’s a difficult and joyous task. Begin.