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Perverse Penances: Gardening Our Way Back To Eden

© Carol Wallace

If the 80's became the 'Me Decade', a decade of frantic consumerism and one-upmanship, the current decade might be called the "Nesting '90s". And is it any wonder? After ten years of racing to keep up with the Joneses most of us must have been pretty exhausted.

There was, at first, a certain luxury in simply staying home. But old habits die hard, and soon staying home became a game of one-upmanship, too. Trained in conspicuous consumption we rushed to feather our nests with domestic symbols of affluence, icons to replace such former signs of success as foreign travel or elegant dinner parties in top restaurants.

For the affluent, interior decorators became necessities; the rest of us took classes in faux finishing, or stenciling, or other arts that would imitate the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

With homes painted, papered and polished to perfection, we moved outside, where we could play our power games in semi-public. Gardening became, for many, a competitive sport. Neighbors eyed each others' gardens not in admiration but in envy. Mrs. Jones grew that clivia that merely survived for us; Mrs. Smythe grabbed that one-of-a kind garden sculpture from the antique shop before we could whip out our overburdened checkbook. Of course, she placed it rather poorly. . . .

For some people, all the competition had a surprising effect. They began to wonder why they couldn't grow that clivia; they wanted to know exactly how to place a piece of sculpture properly if only to lend credibility to their criticism. They began to study nature, to try to understand the garden.

Instead of looking into the next yard to see if the grass was greener, they began to study their own yards, to listen to their plants, discover their needs and improve their growing conditions. Their gardens grew, and soon they discovered that the perfection of the peonies outshone the neighbor's antiques, They became enamored with scent, color and movement -- with all of the growing things that they now took pride in planting and propagating. Some of that green grass began to disappear, slowly engulfed by a flowering carpet of rare beauty. These people became true gardeners.

Most surprising was the discovery that what began as a selfish retreat, an exercise in vanity, had become, instead, something socially responsible. Not for everyone; there are still those Nazi-style gardeners who pump chemicals into the environment in order to mass murder undesirable pests and encourage the Master Race to thrive. But others began to work with, rather than against nature.

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