My Garden Grows Up.
I remember when I first started to garden, how puny and lonesome all of those new little plants looked, forlornly surrounded by vast quantities of soil, so that I felt compelled to rush off and buy lots of annuals, which I tucked around them, as one would tuck a comforter around a baby.
The annuals thrived in the great new soil we had lavished on the raised bed area and soon filled in the blanks. By midsummer, the garden looked full and bountiful. And I thought that did the trick. I had achieved a garden. Or so I thought. I had this notion that whoever covers the bare spots quickest wins - and that was all that a garden needed to do to be real.
But time goes on, and plants grow. Soon I needed fewer and fewer annuals - and naturally, had more than ever, as the previous year's favorites reseeded themselves and came up everywhere.The garden was still full, but tended to look lopsided - full and billowing in some areas, choked to the point of strangulation in others and in other areas, somewhat depressed as though something was supposed to happen that hadn't. My solution? Move some of those nice full things into the depressed areas. Share the wealth.
Of course many of the moved plants immediately sulked, as children will when forced to do something against their will. I had no real idea that the sulk was justified - that the plants had been thriving because they had been well situated, and I was now trying to force them to be something they were not. So no matter how much I moved, or what new things I tried to make thing right, the garden never quite worked. True - no dirt was showing, so by my own definition, what I had was a garden. But it never quite pleased me, except for the odd vignette. This frustrated me no end, I had lavished the utmost care and planning on my gardens. I spent countless hours simply staring at them and trying to discern the problem I simply could not see where I had gone wrong - and why my garden refused to cooperate.
My habit of constantly digging things up and rearranging them probably had a lot to do with it. Plants that might have matured in three years if left alone were constantly migrating and consequently failed to realize their natural potential. Others were stunted, as the overenthusiastic nicotianas that I was too cowardly to thin properly (What?? And kill a perfectly healthy plant??) swamped strong perennials into invisibility.
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