Re-Introduction (02 OCT 2011)

Alistair commented on my previous post : “Revisiting what we have already talked about in the past is very difficult to avoid when garden blogging.”.  It was timely; I’ve been thinking about this quote all week … How many times can one observe a subject deeper or from a different angle before boredom sets in for the writer let alone the readers?

When I blogged about nicotiana last October, it was a minimal post.  Apart from lab write-ups and reports for work, it was the first piece of prose that I’d written since leaving school. I remember criticising as there were too many “I”s considering the brevity of the text, so some were taken out, resulting in broken (though less egotistical) English. The photo became my icon, as it was the only one available which was in focus.  At that time I hadn’t fully appreciated their smokiness and stickiness, how the flower stems started out in life prim and proper, then on reaching middle-age pointed haphazardly in all directions, baring stamens and stigmas unashamedly. I didn’t predict they would self-seed and become a signature plant in my garden.


middle-aged nicotiana


Slugs & snails were mentioned in that first post to pad out the words, though I hadn't even inspected properly to understand my true feelings towards them, just deciding that they shouldn't be killed unecessarily, more so they wouldn't have to be dealt with than out of kindness. I would never have guessed they would be sought for photos or that a situation would arise where one would be touched by accident with an ungloved finger - it felt like a drop of water.

  

snail knocked off a plant



In the About this Blog section, I wrote that since reading The Secret Garden I had wanted a garden of my own; during the past year it dawned on me that this garden belongs as much to the slugs & snails as it does to me. Extending this idea, multiplying by more than a trillion, I realise that the rest of the land area of this planet belongs to me as much as any other person or creature - a thought that hadn't occurred to me before my experiments with plants.

They have not been as scientific as imagined when this blog was entitled - it was more difficult to set up controlled conditions than anticipated. In fact it is the lack of control that adds excitement and I am relieved to take the roles of observer & assistant rather than creator & controller for a change, lifting the weight of responsibility from my shoulders not only when I'm gardening.

Would you believe me if I said my garden has changed my approach to life? … or maybe it’s a coincidence that I’ve become happier, braver, more hopeful and sociable in the past year. The previous gardener and my mother must have known this secret; they had in common a love of roses which I have inherited. When I was young, I used to wonder why my mother bothered with gardening, knowing full well that there would be harsh winters and watering bans in the summer that would disrupt her efforts. Yet after high winds recently damaged my own garden, experiments continued as if nothing had happened; now I recognise that the process is more valuable than the final display.

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