Never been much for horticultural rules, choosing instead to do as I please in my small home grounds.
There is a lot of wiggle room between goal-and efficiency-oriented horticulture and gardening just for the love of it. That said, here are a few of the ways I apply Ockham’s Razor - the simplest way is the best way - to what I do.
Some are one-shot, like never eat wild mushrooms, keep the shovel sharp, protect pollinators and wildlife, and just garden around the fire ants. My favorite two-liner is “There are only two rules for composting: Stop throwing that stuff away and pile it up somewhere - the rest is finesse.” Oh, and if a plant dies more than once, I plant something else.
My four-stage guidance for dealing with challenges is, in order of importance, “If you can’t fix it, flee it, or fight it, flow with it.” This one takes a good bit of Stoic control but reduces anxiety.
But my favs are generally in threes. When it comes to putting plants in a pot, shrubs in a border, or flowers in a vase, I always go with “something roundy, something spikey, and something frilly.” This is a vernacular way of putting the principle of “mass, line, and filler” taught in floral design classes.
The three requirements for a plant to become a popular passalong shared by a lot of different gardeners is that be worth growing, fuss-free, and easy to propagate. Just look around town, any season, and you can see many examples of plants widely grown despite not being readily available for sale: orange daylilies, milk-and-wine crinum lilies, paperwhite daffodils, Clara Curtis mums, cannas, Peggy Martin rose, “cemetery white” iris, red spider lilies, and the like.
Just a few values making some plants popular include unique beauty, extra flavor, long season, good for pollinators, native, and being historic or a family heirloom; the more values a plant has, the more different people will want it. Fuss-free means it doesn’t require a lot of off-putting maintenance, watering, pest control, constant pruning, protection from weather, and the like.
It doesn’t matter how valuable or easy to grow a plant is, if it can’t be shared easily. Whether by prolific seed production, rooting cuttings even in just a glass of water, or dividing clumps, this is how so many gardeners share heirlooms worldwide despite them not being offered commercially.
Finally, my garden triad, which I sum up as “plants, process, and personality.” A space cannot be a garden without all three.
The first step is in choosing appropriate plants. In a wilderness plants figure out stuff on their own without human guidance; but in town, we tend to select just the ones we like or want, and arrange them unnaturally in one area, be it a vegetable or herb garden or flower bed. That’s a start towards a garden.
Second, we take care of them, from preparing soil and keeping them growing with water, pruning, weeding and pest control, all which keep the garden from reverting to chaos. Ordinary landscapes like public parks or around churches and businesses are kept going this way.
But what separates actual gardens from cookie-cutter landscapes is the personal touch. Easiest way to do this is with garden art, which is a whole ‘nother column, but you get the idea: Gnome or realistic life-size sculpture, bottle tree, urn, whatever—good gardens hint at the gardener’s personality or world view, or it’s just another pickup truck in the parking lot.
At least this is how I see mine. No controlling rules, just relaxing guidelines.
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
