Solidago ?speciosa/nemoralis? - One day I'll learn each of the species.... hasn't happened just yet
I don't fault anyone for trying to achieve their idealized sense of beauty. We all do it, at least to a certain extent. Its human nature, but when this quest is mindless, in the pursuit of the unattainable and unsustainable, simply perpetuating an identity-less homogenized cultural standard, it erases the very things from which beauty is derived: the unique, the querky, and the off-kilter. This has become painfully apparent to me after getting a bit swept up in my own quest.
Since leaving for school..... almost ten years ago (deep sigh), and the gardens I puttered in growing up were slowly (or not so slowly) lost to the weeds, my attention was refocused on a rental property my parents owned (mainly because it was close to where I'm currently living, and also cause it had a yard.... something that probably won't be in my future for quite some time... damn student loans). While I have been gardening there for a few years now, my recent overly ambitious undertaking (involving a grant proposal, waaaay too many trips to local town government, and far too many flats of tiny plants) has not only made me question the project itself, but why I garden and to what end.
Unfortunately, in answering this question I've realized I'm guilty of the very thing I've often faulted others for doing ("perpetuating an identity-less homogenized cultural standard....."). While I take full responsibility for my own blind pursuit, I can't help but blame my education at least a little. In school I was bombarded with big projects, grand gardens, most of which were maintained by full time staff and often had the same financial resources at their disposal as some small towns. These designs are not only unattainable by the average person's standards (and I am most definitely below average), but unless you have a small personal fortune these landscape are unattainable by well, just about everyone's standards. Yet these handful of elite projects that are constantly regurgitated by academia somehow set the bar to which all others are measured.
While I realize I was educated as a landscape architect, and not a gardner, I believe it is impossible to separate the two; one informs the other. And ultimately, if my curriculum focused more on the small and intimate and less on the large and lofty I might have learned to look beyond my own preconceptions and keep them from blinding me from the innate beauty and value that already exists in the places I'm tasked with "improving." This realization hit me hard this spring in the varied forms of Serviceberry, Violets, and Goldenrod (and yes I know goldenrod flowers in late summer/fall).
The first slap was a bit delayed.... after buying a fancy selection of Serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) a few years back ('Robin Hill' if I remember correctly) and patting myself on the back for picking such a great native plant it soon became thoroughly infested with cedar rust to the point where every square inch of new growth was covered with a delicate orange fuzz, not unlike our family's neon shag carpet we kept in the living room that I remember getting lost in when I was a toddler (I still say it was trying to eat me). No matter how much I fawned or trimmed it made no difference. Eventually I dug the whole thing up and moved it to where cedars weren't a problem. If I had spent a little less time patting myself on the back and a little more time getting to know the place that I was trying to "improve" I might have noticed the small silver-trunked multi-stemmed trees growing at the edges throughout the property. This tree was, of course, our endemic, cedar-rust resistant Serviceberry, growing happily, despite, the abundant red cedars growing nearby. It's been almost 5 years since I transplanted the tree. I just noticed the existing Serviceberries this year, and only because my dad pointed them out to me and asked me what they were. NOT ACCEPTABLE. NOT ACCEPTABLE AT ALL!!!
Amelanchier ?canadensis? - ditto
The second (not so delayed) slap in the face came after purchasing a packet of Confederate Violets (Viola soraria var./forma priceana or 'Priceana'), the white violet with blue throats that often dots lawns and yard edges in spring time. While some might consider it a weed, I've always gotten a little envious when I've seen it sprinkled in other peoples lawns. After being 100% certain that the rental property was completely violet free I decided to buy a packet of seeds. Sure enough, this spring, Confederate Violets seemed to spontaneously generate in every place I looked, blatantly mocking my ignorance and total lack of observation.
Viola sororia priceana and the additional seedlings that were entirely unnecessary
The third and final wake up call occured when I was pulling up "weeds" to make way for the new meadow plants that were part of the the grant project I worked so hard for. The majority of the "weeds" were a few species of Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) that were vigorously out-competing the young weak little guys that my family and I had planted the previous fall. About a half hour into it, I remembered the same spot, from years before, crowded with Goldenrod in full late summer glory, nearly glowing in the late afternoon light.... the same plants I was zealously yanking up to make way for the newer, shinier replacements that might not even survive the summer.
Hopefully it was worth it....
My education had lead me to believe that designing, and for that matter gardening, implies not only complete modification, but the grand imposition of beauty where it is lacking. While there are instances where this is true, the more experience I get the more I have come to believe that this definition is far from the only one. While, yes, the imposition of some foreign tectonic edifice is often impressive, it does little to reveal the true nature of a place. The most skillful designers use existing elements that are already in place and build on them. Whether through multiplication, or selective deletion, those designers I truly admire utilize a more delicate process. They celebrate and embrace the eccentricities of the spaces in which they create rather than ignore them. For if, in our quest for beauty, we continually destroy and erase more than we reveal and embrace, then not only do the ends fail to justify the means, but the only product of the process is discontent and waste. So the next time you have the urge to run down to your local nursery to buy a few gaudy plants to fill some empty void on your property (and maybe your soul as well) do your best to resist, even if only for a little bit, and take a walk around your yard, or maybe even across the street. See what's there and try to look at things with new eyes. You might realize you already have what you're looking for.
