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Gardening for All 5 Senses, Part V: Seeing and believing

© Carol Wallace

Whoever first said that beauty is in the mind of the beholder must have been watching a gardener in early spring. To the springtime gardener, nothing is more beautiful than a scant half inch of pale green peeking up through a mass of mulch and tangled dead foliage. Spring gardeners tend to walk bent double, peering at what seems to be the casual observer to be nothing at all. While the gardeners are exclaiming in excitement over each sign of life, the observer may see only dirt.

Once the flowers emerge, though, most of us become much more critical. We look at the garden through different eyes, questioning each plant in its position and juxtaposition to others. We pounce on weeds as though they are inkblots on an otherwise pristine page. We apologize constantly to garden visitors, saying that they should have been here last week, or that they should see what things will look like next week. Today is never the day the garden looks the way we think it should.

That's because when once the flowers emerge, we tend to stop viewing each new blossom with wonder, and begin to look at it through other peoples' eyes. Parts of the picture are lovely, but suddenly others are awkward, perhaps unkempt, perhaps ill proportioned or dull. So we wander endlessly, shovel in hand, moving things from place to place, throwing in another annual or perennial in hopes of finally achieving the perfect garden composition.We forget to enjoy the beauty that does exist in our garden, engrossed as we are in our idea of what could be.

The culprit, in part, is the garden magazine photo, which makes other people's gardens look so perfectly composed and full of color, texture and life that our own efforts appear paltry. Magazine photographers, however, are experts at framing a shot, so that the eager reader never sees what errors might lie just out of range of the lens.

If your garden doesn't delight your sense of sight, try looking at it through a camera lens of your own. Chances are that you, too, can find areas of real beauty on which to focus. Develop a roll or two and you'll probably gain a new appreciation for your efforts.

To make things even better, buy a roll of black and white film. While you may have the colors right, a common source of dissatisfaction with what we see lies in the juxtapositions of form and texture. Eliminate color and the textures and forms become the stars. This is a good way to see what works and what really needs rearranging, cutting back or eliminating. Don't try to take panoramic pictures. Instead take shots of small, discrete areas of the beds, so you can get a good look at the details.

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