my gardening world
If you follow me on the fedi, I'll mention that I'm spending time in the garden quite a lot. This may lead you to infer that I am a keen gardener, but I'm not really. I know nothing about gardening.
I'm not very good at learning either.
As Monty Don explains something on Gardeners World on the TV that J has prompted me to pay attention to, I tell her "Yes, yes, I've got that," only for whatever it was he said to resist being stored by any half-interested brain cells—it just fades away silently into the aether at the beginning of the next segment of the program.
I look at books or articles on the internet and I read them, only for nothing to properly take root in my never-quite-fully-engaged brain. I am always learning, but probably it's actually relearning something I've forgotten I already 'learned'. Then I forget it again.
I know very few common plant names, and the Latin names have absolutely no chance of sticking. Thing is, my memory is shot post-stroke. At least, I think it was the stroke that did it—I can't actually remember if it was any good pre-stroke now either.
Also, I get bogged down or distracted by how or what methods or apps I am going to use if I try to make plans or notes. Consequently there are half-formed plans and undated and uncategorised snippets of disorganised information in about twenty different apps sprawled all over my computer.
Often, all I am doing out in the garden is attempting to control some element or other of the garden we already have, rather than applying any ideas and themes of my own to it. At its most basic level, I am merely preventing the garden looking like it's been abandoned and nature has been let loose to consume the house.
All of my often hefty work seems to be cutting back and clearing up what has already grown too much. Mainly, I don't want it looking too much like the rotting bodies of the occupants may be discovered if anyone can be bothered to hack their way through the massively overgrown thickets and dodge the feral cats to get to the house.
I have no problem cutting back stuff that is already growing (and we know it'll be growing back even stronger soon afterwards), but I am very soft on actually removing things. There is a certain sympathy for life, nature, and the serendipity of where it has found to survive operating in me, which finds it hard to actually kill anything, animals or plants.
That's why we have an oak tree sapling, five years old now, growing in the front meadow area. It arrived, and I've left it there to grow. It deserves to, simply by having survived to make the start. And why there are a couple of now three meter tall sycamore trees growing out of the front bank that borders the lane. And a hazel and numerous other spontaneously arrived hawthorn trees growing in the bank on the side of the driveway.
They arrived, set up home, and we had the room, so I let them stay and leave them to it.
I like it being wild, and I like the thought of our little patch being an oasis in the relative wildlife desert of the agricultural land surrounding us. The randomness and spontaneity of the universe in a little green microcosm. And nature has rewarded us by giving us hours of pleasure watching it all being enjoyed by plentiful creatures, insect, bird and mammal.
However, I just found, after clearing all the grass that I let grow long for the spring/summer seasons (I do 'No Mow May'. And June, July and August—in fact, I only mow it once a year at the end of August), another new oak sapling. It's tiny and obviously relatively young at about 20cm tall.
Sadly it's only a meter away from the existing five year old one, so for the first time I'm going to have to remove this new arrival as it's too close to the one that got there first. It's fine at the moment, while both trees are young, but it will be shaded out and out-competed in future, so won't be able to survive well later on. But I will look for somewhere else in the garden where an oak tree will be a good addition, and where it might to be able to do well.
I can't just dig it up and leave it to die, now it's made the start on a life which could be many hundreds of years long. It's not right for a mere human, with just a relative eye-blink of his life left, to do that, is it?
Post Link: https://skryblans.com/my-gardening-world
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