Report From PIA – May 10
Oh sure, sometimes we gardeners put a group of plants here, and another there, and they reliably grow in that location for years. I walk through my entry garden this spring and greet the Calamintha, Nepeta, Coreopsis, and Perovskia that I truly expect to see there each spring.
Other times we plant something one year and don’t see it again. After a couple of years we forget we ever put these varieties in the garden. Occasionally, however, seeds from a particular plant that was placed in the garden long ago suddenly germinate, and the offspring of that genus or species is unexpectedly back.
Similarly, we may accept a small slip of a plant from a friend, or grow a tiny sprout from seed, and neither of these looks like much until a year or more later when suddenly a miraculous flower, attractive bark or seedpod catches our eye.
Today I was feeling as if I’m working at the same thing over and over and not moving forward. This blog was begun with the intention of recording a year of conscious cultivation, but on many days I’m thinking that nothing much is being grown. The same ground is being tended and kept more or less stable, but am I really fostering something more? Am I sowing seeds that appear to be dormant, only to burst into bloom in a future landscape?
We must continue to plant without expectation that all of our seedlings will grow… at the same time, we need to remember that seeds can have a long period of dormancy, and when we least expect it, we humans can burst into glorious bloom. We can aim to cultivate consciously, but the mysteries of growth may be beyond our control.
This garden is so new that not much springs up unexpectedly. And yet it continues to develop and turn into something more than the sum of its parts, and it continues to grow slowly, steadily, with its own patient rhythm.
