Yesterday I worked barefoot on the farm. Black soles, green toes, jeans rolled up, catching crickets, loving a baby goat, whistling Rocketman, waiting for Momma to call us in for supper, and unaware that I’d wake up this morning a 57 year old man.
Yesterdays seem almost the same in my mind.
The other yesterday, April 10, 2023, went by in a flash too. 37 texts from clients, and 12 calls from my guys, while I was barefoot in the studio drawing a hillside garden design, then potting up rain lilies, painting with an artist, and fixing a bike. I did actually get a baby goat and ended up reading about myself in The New York Times and then eating supper with Momma at dusk. (New York Times link is here).
Don’t blink. Time goes so fast. April days especially, for professional gardeners, get chaotic. We rely on technology, friends, coworkers, and clients to get it all done.
One of the guys on my crew called and said to me, ‘Hey the weather’s good this week, we could go on and pour the new walkway, knock this job out. Why do you want to leave it and come back next week?” I didn’t even think about it. “No way. Pack up the tractor and tools and let that job sit for a week.” I know he let out a big sigh and said to the other guys, “You know Jenks always wants to move slow.”
Efficiency sounds good. In making bike tires or bras or even planting a bank parking lot, it may be. But in gardening, going slow is the best path. Making a garden isn’t industry. Plants are not commodities. The right tree, nor the best view may reveal itself quickly. To make the best garden I need to blink, to think, and to feel.
If we had rushed, we would have missed this stunning but subtle detail.
Imagine on a normal day, you come home from work, open one of double front doors and see yourself in the foyer mirror. You put down your bag, check your hair and move on.
But if you are having a party, you open both doors. They swing wide and out of sight. They reveal the entire giant mirror. When your guest get out of the car, they don’t see a door at all, they see what looks like a gateway into another garden. They see light and green and as they approach the front door, they see themselves in that garden. They see a reflection in the giant mirror.
It’s a beautiful, welcoming trick. Even the sago palm placement must have been thought out — it’s centered in the mirror.
It’s a detail we would have missed if we’d gone too fast and if we’d valued efficiency over good energy in the garden. Blink, feel, find the energy, and let your garden reveal itself slowly. That’s the difference between landscaping and garden-making.
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