My collections of garden books and garden weeds are roughly the same size. I haven’t learned much from the weeds–except that they are eternal–but I have learned a lot from the books.
There are some lessons, though, that only experience can teach. Here are a few of them.
Self Seeding vs. Self Preservation—If you have a cottage-type garden, you know all about self seeding plants, including prolific creatures like larkspur, rose campion, forget-me-not, perilla mint and nigella. When your garden is new, these plants are a godsend, filling up space and requiring little maintenance. But by the time your garden is five or six years old, the self-seeders show their true colors, popping up everywhere, including the sidewalk cracks. When I was a young gardener, I thought that lightening would strike me dead if I pulled up an unwanted seedling. If I managed to avoid the lightening bolts, the garden spirits would certainly take their revenge by killing off the more desirable plants.
One day I got so disgusted with the hundreds of ‘Alma Potschke’ aster seedlings that I pulled out about fifteen at one time. I waited for the lightening bolt, but it never came. Emboldened I pulled out many more of ‘Alma’s offspring, until the remaining asters were clustered nicely in areas where they would have the greatest impact. The desirable plants stayed healthy, as did my new attitude towards self-sown annuals.
Deadheading—Scrupulous gardeners deadhead or get rid of wilted flowers regularly to keep beds, borders and pots looking fresh. The practice also encourages annuals and some perennials to rebloom. The downside of deadheading is that it eats up precious time. As in all things, balance is the key. Some flowers, like poppies, Japanese anemones and coneflowers, die very elegantly, shedding their petals one by one, until only the ripening seedheads or pods remain. Other flower, like traditional petunias and some roses, turn into ugly brown balls that cling to the plants, bearing silent witness to your slovenly garden housekeeping.
If you really hate deadheading, focus on buying varieties that die gracefully. If, like me, you succumb to plant-buying frenzies and fail to consider such things, deadhead as you can. When I am doing my daily walk around the garden, I try to remove at least ten spent flowerheads. You won’t get them all by doing this, but you can remove the most noticeable ones. This practice also allows you to be philosophical about the ephemeral nature of life and the necessity of seeing real ugliness—like flaccid daylily remains—in order to appreciate beauty. Having a trove of these deep insights in the back of your mind is a real help when have to deal with pretentious people at parties.
Failure—Experience has taught me that loving a plant does not mean you can grow it successfully. I adore fragrant sweet peas, tall delphiniums and robust lupines, but I haven’t had much success with any of them. A couple of years ago I bought some delphiniums that were billed as being fairly tolerant of my area’s heat and humidity. Like good soldiers, they have returned every year. They may be tolerant, but they are not setting any records for height or bloom size. The delphiniums are doing well enough so that I would feel guilty composting them, but not well enough to make me happy. The real lesson may be that it is foolish to let delphiniums create existential dilemmas.
If I focused all my energies on growing ornamental sweet peas, I could probably do it well. However, I can have absolutely gorgeous roses with much less effort. Laziness trumps romantic longings once again.
Expect Serendipity: Unexpectedly good things happen all the time in gardens. For example, every year birds excrete the seeds of sweet autumn clematis all over my yard. I grub out or mow over the unwanted seedlings, but I have dug up a few and planted them in strategic places. They wander up the holly tree and meander around one of the beds, looking like cascades of stars when they bloom. I cut the clematis back hard in the fall and they return, full of vigor in the spring.
Five years ago I got some free Frittilaria meleagris or guinea hen flower bulbs. I was never really attracted to the checkered, tulip-like spring bloomers, so I put the bulbs in the ground near a hydrangea and forgot about them. This year, my original three had increased into a pretty little clump and by next spring there will be even more. I also take great pleasure in a stand of alluring campanulas that are evidently descended from a single specimen plant that I don’t even remember acquiring. My buying frenzies generally make it impractical to note every purchase in my garden diary and lists of purchases are prosaic anyway. It’s much better to use the diary to wax rhapsodic about unexpected botanical benisons.
There are lots of rules about planting tomatoes, making compost and staking bean plants. There are no rules about reaping quantities of joy in your garden. You have to make up your own.