I have been looking with considerable interest at an English gardening magazine with pictures and an article about an English garden that has been maintained continuously for several hundred years.
While we Americans do have a few gardens that have been maintained for long periods because of their historical associations, we have very few whose permanence is due to their garden interest.
Perhaps we are still too young as a people to ignore opportunity as it presents itself or to be afflicted by nostalgia at the thought of the garden we have abandoned.
No people have such a wide range of possible interests as we have, so the appeal of a cottage garden may not be as irresistible or as important to us as it may be to others.
There is no doubt that there has been a remarkable increase in garden interest here in America.
Evidence Of Increased Garden Interest
The development of private gardens, the rapid growth of garden organizations, the success of garden publications, and the increase in garden exhibitions.
These all give evidence of the increased interest, but the lack of permanence of so many gardens, and the interest through which they were created, should not be ignored.
Is gardening here in America too difficult, too expensive, or too disappointing so that its devotees cast aside the tools of the craft, abandoning their gardens to the care of nature?
Things Of Nature
The things of nature appeal to most of us even though so many of its ways are still mysterious.
We have an abundance of advice, books, and articles, many of them interesting even though they are largely compilations of generalities, somewhat traditional, and very limited application.
Such generalities lacking the appealing logic that should be back of them are not always of great value.
We have abundant pictures and descriptions, but even pictures and descriptions can be misleading.
Aids To Become Good Gardeners
One of the most helpful aids to those who would become good gardeners is to become interested in the wildflowers that may be found locally.
Native plants naturally grow to indicate soil and climatic conditions with remarkable accuracy.
There are many other things than native plants that can be grown through the efforts and skill of a good gardener, and it is a mistake to ignore the indications that wildflowers present.
Our good fortune in having such a wide range of attractive garden materials easily available may sometimes add to the confusion and ultimate disappointment that may even prove fatal to a permanent garden interest.
Ericaceous Plants In Manitoba
There probably will never be a statutory law prohibiting the planting of magnolias and flowering dogwoods in Manitoba or ericaceous plants in alkaline regions, but there are other ways to learn than by experience.
However, most of us have learned that even success on one side of a path gives no assurance that equal success can be attained on the other.
As a people, we have great faith in the efficacy of organizations. As a result, we have garden clubs and societies devoted to some special flowers such as roses and iris.
Then we have state federations and federations of federations. We like to assume that only through organized effort can we attain our objectives.
I suspect at times that we crave closer contact and association with those with whom we have a common interest.
Garden Organization
It may lie significantly that our garden organizations are not, as a rule, particularly interested in cultural problems.
It may also be significant that in many cases, the membership, especially in those organizations devoted to some special interest, indicates impermanence, and the turnover is very great.
I wish there were a better medium to place what is known about garden craft more adequately at the disposal of those who wish to garden.
From time to time, it has been my good fortune to meet outstanding gardeners who were almost inarticulate about their garden practices.
Gladly they would show you their gardens, with which they were in communion, without using words.
Always were they the good — the excellent gardeners — and I can never think of their gardens living neglected or abandoned.
English Cottage Gardener
It seems to me that the English cottage gardener has perfected this brevity of speech so that often, with a single syllable only half enunciated, he can indicate a complex cultural problem that would require much explanation from one less adept.
What makes English garden literature and so many English gardens, be they large or small, so interesting is the range of conditions prevailing in relatively small areas.
In this vast land of ours, we have an even greater range of conditions, none of which, with rather minor and obvious exceptions, we ignore, often to our sorrow and sometimes to the permanence of our garden interest.
Great Extent Nature
Perhaps it would lie well if we would recognize that, to a great extent, nature, in determining soil and atmospheric conditions, does most of the work even though she permits us to accept much of the credit for whatever success we have.
Not that I would ever expect nature’s conditions to be tailored to fit the time, the place, and the gardener’s wishes — for that would take much of the element of chance from gardening.
It would give us no excuse for walking off the job. Perhaps, however, it would give greater permanence to our gardens.
44659 by Arthur E. Rapp