Celebrating garden diversity
for hazelwoodhomepage.com
To: hazelwoodeditor@yahoo.com
One sentence sure to ruin a lovely conversation about gardening starts with, "You should..." Everybody's different and every garden spot is different. There are no set rules about what is the best way to garden: what to plant with what; when to plant; how to plant and with what tools; how to compost; how to care for your plants. Each garden and gardener has a unique set of limitations - time, money, physical strength, know-how, space.
And people garden for different reasons. Beautify the neighborhood. Feed people. Feed wildlife. Grow medicinal herbs. Pot up plants to sell. Aromatherapy. Provide a playground or learning area. Create a peaceful gathering area for adults. Save the Earth by nurturing and restoring the web of life. Raise the property value of the neighborhood. Give people positive options.
We can think and discuss all winter long how a garden should be, but when Spring comes around it's do time. And everybody wants to do something different. I'm learning to not so much make it in the eyes of my fellow gardeners as to just do my own thing. I'm into bugs - the little things (many too small to see without a microscope) most people either miss or are scared of or irritated by. If they only had a clue as to the stupendous beauty of - and intelligence displayed by - small life forms, maybe they'd be more able to see how important to us humans they are. From the butterflies - that can smell nectar a mile away - to the microbes that, literally, have microscopic machines inside them - to the earthworms that glow in the dark when injured (and don't ask me to prove it by injuring any earthworms to show you) - to the honeybees which have become friends with humans to the extent that they share their products (honey, propolis, royal jelly, wax) and services (as pollinators) with us - to the underground fungi that play their part in plant nutrition - insects and microbes testify that Nature is not a battlefield, it's a civilization. We are not the only creature that feels, nurtures, sacrifices, intuits, or deserves freedom. A honeybee will sting, but that act is a suicide to protect its hive. If we want to keep on eating, we need to respect the honeybees and other insect pollinators that allow our crops to produce.
Diversity of life in an ecosystem makes for stability. By encouraging as much quantity and variety of life as possible we make disease outbreaks less likely to happen and more manageable when they do. The more complexity in the system the easier it is to adapt. The same holds true for human communities open enough to welcome all kinds of people, enjoying our differences rather than being afraid of them.
And that's what makes a place valuable - all kinds of people with all kinds of ways of looking at things and all types of gardens.
======
To: hazelwoodeditor@yahoo.com
One sentence sure to ruin a lovely conversation about gardening starts with, "You should..." Everybody's different and every garden spot is different. There are no set rules about what is the best way to garden: what to plant with what; when to plant; how to plant and with what tools; how to compost; how to care for your plants. Each garden and gardener has a unique set of limitations - time, money, physical strength, know-how, space.
And people garden for different reasons. Beautify the neighborhood. Feed people. Feed wildlife. Grow medicinal herbs. Pot up plants to sell. Aromatherapy. Provide a playground or learning area. Create a peaceful gathering area for adults. Save the Earth by nurturing and restoring the web of life. Raise the property value of the neighborhood. Give people positive options.
We can think and discuss all winter long how a garden should be, but when Spring comes around it's do time. And everybody wants to do something different. I'm learning to not so much make it in the eyes of my fellow gardeners as to just do my own thing. I'm into bugs - the little things (many too small to see without a microscope) most people either miss or are scared of or irritated by. If they only had a clue as to the stupendous beauty of - and intelligence displayed by - small life forms, maybe they'd be more able to see how important to us humans they are. From the butterflies - that can smell nectar a mile away - to the microbes that, literally, have microscopic machines inside them - to the earthworms that glow in the dark when injured (and don't ask me to prove it by injuring any earthworms to show you) - to the honeybees which have become friends with humans to the extent that they share their products (honey, propolis, royal jelly, wax) and services (as pollinators) with us - to the underground fungi that play their part in plant nutrition - insects and microbes testify that Nature is not a battlefield, it's a civilization. We are not the only creature that feels, nurtures, sacrifices, intuits, or deserves freedom. A honeybee will sting, but that act is a suicide to protect its hive. If we want to keep on eating, we need to respect the honeybees and other insect pollinators that allow our crops to produce.
Diversity of life in an ecosystem makes for stability. By encouraging as much quantity and variety of life as possible we make disease outbreaks less likely to happen and more manageable when they do. The more complexity in the system the easier it is to adapt. The same holds true for human communities open enough to welcome all kinds of people, enjoying our differences rather than being afraid of them.
And that's what makes a place valuable - all kinds of people with all kinds of ways of looking at things and all types of gardens.
======
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 1:53 PM
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