GARDENING AS A METAPHOR FOR THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in — what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 

Like few other endeavors, gardening teaches you that there is no such thing as perfection.  As in life, you can only strive to attain a personal ideal, acknowledging faults as you work to improve your less than sterling inclinations.  The impulse to improve, correct, and mold is constant, but you are never entirely successful.  My garden has always been a challenging yet soothing ideal and vision, and is a continuous work in progress. There are many steps forward and fumbles in between, and the learning curve is steep, but the therapeutic value of gardening far exceeds the end result, pretty as it may be.  As you learn more about gardening, your ideal changes with your changing attitudes to style and beauty.  It is always, however, much easier to work on a Daphne x transatlantica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ (temperamental as it can be) than to curb your own tendency to be impulsive.  The shaping of a Bloodgood Japanese maple is much easier to accomplish than ending a torrid but disastrous affair without bitterness or mayhem, although sometimes there are similarities. 

Beginning with my first attempt in the late ‘60s to grow a solitary marijuana plant behind the shed of our shotgun rental house in Riverside, California, to dealing with my garden today, I have realized that what once seemed to be a laudable goal, having a perfectly designed garden, only leads to dissatisfaction, silliness, and madness.  The rental house was just off a freeway exit, and the unadorned, weedy yard was partially enclosed by a chain link fence.  There was one beautiful and abundant fig tree. We had a lively, young shepherd mix who tore around the garden and dug tunnels under the fence which our very sweet, elderly neighbors would try to fill in.  Riverside used to be known for its orange groves until smog killed off most of the orchards and the Santa Ana River ran dry.  On certain evenings, you could still catch an occasional, tantalizing whiff of oranges from the remaining groves while sitting at the board and bricks table underneath which a family of black widow spiders lived.  We had many impromptu parties in that scorched earth yard, where we used a large Rubbermaid trash can to mix up our version of Sangria with cheap wine, brandy, gingerale, and lots of oranges.  Beer was brewing in the shed until the very hot day when all of the bottles exploded. Hidden behind the shed was my one marijuana plant which I carefully watered every day.

My interest in gardening was inspired by a move to the Pacific Northwest where there is no better climate for growing anything but the most sun and heat demanding plants.  After the arid landscapes of southern California to the more verdant Bay Area and then Portland, the lush foliage of Seattle and its surrounding islands, mountains, lakes, and ocean was awe-inspiring.  I fell in love with the gardening opportunities and style — its unrestrained, to hell with the rules attitude.  

Fast forward many years and different houses, and we come to my last house where I’ve lived for 21 years.  When I moved in there were a few sickly trees and shrubs, and a long swathe of golden bamboo forming a fence between the sidewalk and the back garden.  Let me say that although bamboo forms a lovely, swaying, light-filtering hedge which birds love, even if you have the requisite three foot deep barrier, it will still escape and wreak havoc on your life and sidewalk.  If you must have bamboo, keep it in a pot and don’t consider putting it into the ground.  A couple of years ago, I was thinking of getting rid of a clump of black bamboo by the kitchen window.  The estimates for doing so were in the $10,000 range, so think twice before you plant.

In Seattle, we tend to rid our yards of grass and plant shrubs and perennials in its place. We take over our parking strips which are not, technically, ours to take, but we do so in the spirit of beautification, and to grow tomatoes and other vegetables. If you have ever had any back-to-the-land impulses, this extra amount of gardening space might provide you with enough work to question that impulse.

Once you have a good collection of self-seeding plants — grasses, foxglove, lady’s mantle, love-in-a-mist, euphorbia, stinking hellebores, and ferns — your gardening life is simplified. They are easily moved to different spots in the garden to fill in the gaps, and if you have the energy, you can pot them up and give them to neighbors.  Daylilies, Japanese anemone, acanthus, alstroemeria, and violets are another matter, and one must be swift and ruthless if you are to deter them.  I lost the battle with the anemone, alstroemeria, and violets, and waged a fierce and backbreaking encounter with the daylilies.  I continue to war with the staghorn sumac which I have dug up numerous times, but did manage to eliminate a couple of rhubarbs, and a badly sited acanthus spinosus over the course of about three years. Years ago, I bought one violet plant at a nursery, and a couple of years later, the violets were everywhere, even in the potted plants and between the brickwork. Unless you spray the entire garden with a potent pesticide, you will not be able to get rid of their tenacious, horizontal roots. Therefore, I duly admire them in the spring when they are very appealing, and just dig around them the rest of the time.

Like a marriage gone bad, my ambivalent view of daylilies mirrors my perception of accomplishment, failure, and acceptance.  Daylilies have their brief, wonderful moment of beauty, and then recede into a tangle of long and unruly leaves which the dogs in my neighborhood love to pee on.  I recently re-read Gide’s The Immoralist and was struck by a phrase:  “Memory is the invention of misery.”  This was not uttered as a reference to gardening but it is applicable in the memory of my daylily clash.  There were many different clumps of daylilies which, over the years, had spread their compact, underground roots to many parts of the garden.  I decided on a major renovation and dug up all of the daylilies, or at least thought I had.  It was physically hard work, and I worked for several weeks digging and dividing and moving the bulbs and attached leaves into boxes according to type and color.  I kept a select few, one of each variety, and gave away the rest to the neighborhood — probably close to a thousand daylilies.  I drew up a design for the garden and bought some new shrubs which I installed; I replanted the few daylilies I had kept back.  It is in winter when daylilies start to emerge, and I discovered to my shock that I hadn’t dug up all of the original ones, and some were coming back in their original locations. I dug those up and gave them away, but they came back. There were some I could never reach; they were too tenaciously bound up in the roots of other plants. Today, some ten years later, the daylilies are as rampant and widespread as they ever were, and I have decided to let them be.

Because my house is just blocks away from Woodland Park and Green Lake, there is a varied wildlife presence frequently on the move in different parts of the garden. Various members of a raccoon family and its descendants amble through the garden, hang out in the huge birch in the neighbor’s yard, and at night come to the glass door in the back to peer inquisitively into the kitchen. For a few years, I had a large water pot filled with aquatic plants and several goldfish, but the raccoons destroyed the plants and devoured the goldfish. Now I just fill the pot with water and listen to the fountain’s relaxing burble. There are small brown rabbits in the parking strip, ubiquitous squirrels, a languorous opossum moving across the deck one night, and once a coyote running down the sidewalk in the morning. Birds are everywhere — sparrows, chicadees, crows, hawks, robins, bushtits, Bewick’s wrens, Steller’s jays, flickers, hummingbirds, and more. For many years, I had a variety of bird feeders hanging from the shed, but rats arrived in record numbers, and I discontinued their use. The birds have managed to survive nonetheless.

Who hasn’t lavished love and careful tending on a plant that didn’t perform?  It’s similar to the relationship drama where one person is much more infatuated than the other who merely acquiesces to the adoration but never returns it.  My climbing evergreen hydrangea (Hydrangea integrifolia) was such an example.  It took at least five years before the plant began to exhibit any real signs of life, as I anxiously wondered whether to move it, leave it alone, or get rid of it.  I staked every pathetic branch so it would be properly supported, and clipped off yellowing leaves.  Finally, last summer, it kicked into high gear and started to expand with verve and determination.  I will probably regret that I ever planted it there since I can see it’s going to be one of those “vigorous growers.”

When a nursery tag says a plant is a “vigorous grower,” believe the tag.  I bought a clematis tangutica some years ago to put against a trellis affixed to a neighbor’s garage.  Within one season it had consumed the entire wall, swallowing up the jasmine, the climbing rose, and  two daintier clematis, wrapping itself around the Hinoki cypress, curling into the flax and engulfing the abelia.  Clematis tangutica has a yellow flower, and in a fit of exasperation, I decided to rid the garden of all things yellow.  Out it went, and in went a passionflower vine which proved to be almost as aggressive.  That was eliminated as well, and the existing jasmine has taken over nicely, along with the rose, and the clematis.  I did plant another passionflower in a side garden where the searching tendrils and rapidly vining stems have successfully taken over the fence.

I have become inordinately fond of ferns because they are so alluring and forest-primeval-like as they unfurl.  We have plenty of shade-loving native ferns in the Pacific Northwest; the Western Sword Fern is not only indestructible but one of the few which can tolerate sun.  The others in my garden like shade — Japanese Painted Fern, Tassel Fern, Korean Rock Fern, Alaskan Fern, Divided Soft Shield Fern, Christata the King Male Fern, Makino’s Holly Fern, Shaggy Shield Fern, East Indian Holly Fern, Kaye’s Hart-Tongue Fern, Autumn Fern, Maidenhair Fern, and Lion’s Mane (my favorite) — but are endlessly appealing as they open up and reveal their furry and intricate leaves.  They obligingly re-seed, filling in the gaps and are easy to move if they become too large for the space. 

I love hostas, but find that slugs love them more when they are in the ground.  I’ve searched nurseries for supposedly slug-resistant hostas, but it’s all a lie.  There is no such thing.  I now keep most of the hostas in pots around the garden which keep the slimy predators away.  Another perennial favorite is heuchera.  There are hundreds of varieties but they are hardy, and easy to keep looking good.  You just have to remember to whack them to the ground in early spring, and they will come back like clockwork.  Otherwise, after a few seasons they will form a peaked crown which looks odd and doesn’t enhance the plant. The color choices are what I like:  you can find them in varying shades of lime green, peach, orange, reds, black to burgundy, variegated, and they have enticing names like ‘Chocolate Ruffles,’ ‘Kassandra,’ ‘Blondie,’ ‘Georgia Peach,’ ‘Sweet Tea,’ ‘Obsidian,’ ‘Sugar Berry,’ ‘Pinot Gris,’ and ‘Wildberry.’ Some do better in sun and some in shade so you just have to pay attention to their light requirements.  They are wonderful fillers and are good in pots.

Lilies — Trumpet, Asiatic, Easter, Oriental, Martagon, and others — are a prized addition to any garden because of their beauty and scent.  Second to ferns, I love watching them grow and unfold.  You do have to be vigilant about slugs. It’s a bleak day when you observe the half eaten bud on a lily stem and know it will not bloom that year.  I used to have a soft spot for hebes, but like any passing love affair, you are smitten for only so long and then move on.  They can be a bit touchy and don’t like very cold temperatures — half of the shrub can mysteriously die while the other half thrives.  They will seed so if one of your hebes should die in winter, there is often a healthy seedling ready to replace it.  Vacciniums have recently surpassed my hebe interest.  The group includes blueberries, huckleberries, and lingonberry, but their growth is easily kept in check and their flowers and berries are lovely.  They are sedate little shrubs which have their quiet place in the garden.

Gardeners know there is a season for everything — the gardening life is ordered and never-ending.  It marches on with regularity and purpose.  Plants will grow,  plants will die, and you can only try to assist in the process and compost the failures.  There are certain immutable garden rules which you should generally adhere to, however. In the dead of winter, you can read gardening books for inspiration and buy tempting plants, bulbs, or seeds from catalogs or nurseries.  In late winter, you prune to shape most shrubs and trees if necessary.  You cut back some but not all grasses, watch the hellebore flowers develop, and admire the blooming witch hazel. The sarcococca and daphne ‘Perfume Princess’ bloom and the air is heavy with their scent.  In early spring, you cut back old fern leaves as the new tendrils emerge, level hardy fuschias and other perennials to the ground, cut back certain types of clematis, lavender, and all heuchera, move grasses and foxglove to a more propitious spot, and watch with delight as everything else in the garden begins to unfurl and develop.  This is the time when I start my daily tramp through the garden, carefully looking at each plant to make sure it is well situated and beginning to thrive. In early summer, you continue to fuss and clip away, filling a few pots with different annuals, until the day you finally sit in the garden with friends and a glass of wine and survey the surprisingly calm and beautiful garden.  In the fall, you can divide perennials, bring in tender plants, clean up mushy daylily, peony, or agapanthus leaves, and rake leaves into borders.  It is a terrible time to prune anything because you weaken the shrub or tree before winter’s cold onslaught. Leave everything as is, and the birds and other critters will be happy as they forage around seed heads and berries.

Although my labor intensive garden is not yet out of control, the effort it takes to keep it under control is considerable and of less interest to me now.  I used to easily work for five or six hours a day in the garden, and only feel a bit stiff the next day.  Now, if I work for only two or three hours, I feel it more.  A few months ago, I climbed about six-seven feet into a Japanese maple to saw off two dead branches.  I was uncomfortably squashed between three branches opposite my Little Free Library.  A fellow came up to look at the books in the library and noticed me sawing.  He politely asked me if I should be doing that, and then offered to do it himself.  I said no, thank you, I’m up here and can do it myself, all the while reminding myself to take it easy, be careful, and not to fall in front of him. Eventually, I managed to saw off the branches, and came down from the tree.  As I was congratulating myself on my achievement, I tried to pull the branches out of the parking strip, lost my balance and fell over the little bamboo fence, landing on my rear.  There were no injuries, but I did decide that I should probably stay out of trees from now on.

A couple of years ago, I root pruned a six foot tall Bloodgood Japanese maple hybrid which I had grown from a one inch seedling and that has lived in a pot for ten years (the red tree in the light green pot). It took me hours just to get the damn thing out of the pot, disentangle and prune the roots, and then repot it.  Fortunately, it was in a straight sided pot, not the kind where the lip curves in at the top.  Then it becomes even more of an arduous task, and is another garden chore I’m more and more reluctant to take on.  A side note on pots: If you choose a ceramic pot, consider the shape carefully and decide how important color cohesion is to you.  I’m pretty much in the green and brown range with a few dark blue ones scattered here and there. Resin pots are much easier to move around, but the style and color choices are more limited.  Go to nursery pot sales for better quality pots, but you can sometimes find decent ceramic and resin pots at Fred Meyer or Costco at significantly lower prices.

As a self-taught gardener, I have made many costly plant mistakes and changed my mind about design issues; I frequently move plants from one spot to another.  Every summer I look at the result and am generally happy, but there is always something awry, something I intend to change next year.  Even though I know I will never be fully satisfied, it is in the nature of most gardeners to make the attempt.  Perhaps it’s just a matter of moving that perennial over there, or a needed blast of color to set off the leaves of the dark red smoke bush?  The one thing you will know is a feeling of satisfaction and contentment in your handiwork brought by many hours of physical labor and contemplation. Gardening is an individual expression of style and dreams, a form of meditation where you are utterly focused in your mind, and are unaware of the passage of time.

Gardening since the early noughties has become fashionable and is no longer the province of socialites and retired folks.  Younger people have taken it up and are tuned into the latest craze which, to my amazement, now involves terrariums again (developed in the 1840’s and popular in the ‘60s). They also seem to love small succulents in tiny white pots which they line up on their empty bookshelves.  I’m beginning to see macrame again.  Now we have “garden coaches” who advise on pot styles and appropriate plants for your front door entrance.  Nurseries will plant pots for you at great cost, and host seminars and workshops on tree and shrub pruning, pot selection, care of house plants, and the wonders of clematis and other vines.  Landscape architects and qualified gardeners are in great demand.  Garden tours are always popular; many are interesting and worth pursuing because they give you a look at another style and vision.

Despite Punxsutawney Phil’s recent forecast of six more weeks of winter, and after what feels like weeks of incessant rain in Seattle, the promise of spring hovers like the green light at the end of the dock in The Great Gatsby. When clear skies prevail, most gardeners don their grubby work clothes, put on their rubber shoes, gather their tools, and venture outside to survey winter damage, cut back a few more straggly perennials, prune shrubs, and train hawk-like eyes on emerging daylily clumps for evidence of slug and snail invasions. My most dreaded task in early spring is checking the watering system to make sure I haven’t inadvertently chopped a hose in half while digging up a plant, replacing clogged sprinkler heads, and re-programming all of the timers.

Theater is at work in a garden.  Life and death, love and hate, style and function in plant form vie for attention. Despite the drama, we find joy and restorative serenity in gardening, sometimes tinged by exasperation with our lack of success. We all know that perfection is in short supply these days, but continue to make mistakes, take the plunge, and see what transpires.  You can always change things next season.

(All photos credit are the author’s: These are photos I have taken in my garden over the course of many years, except for the one in Riverside where I’m watering my one plant marijuana crop. Top image is Passiflora incarnata (Purple Passion Flower.))