The Garden Not at Home

For the past year or so, I’ve been mesmerised with the vastness of the natural world. I’ve started immersing myself in biology, ecology and gardening.

I’m more of a dreamer than I am a doer, so I’ve gravitated towards reading; Metazoa by Peter Godfrey Smith, on the evolution of consciousness from sponges to humans. Making a strong evolutionary case for the idea that, like anything else in this mad world of ours, consciousness is complex, varied, nuanced and gradual. Making the radical case that no - ants likely don’t lack consciousness in their entirety - they likely have very little of it.

Or when I read Symbiotic Planet by Lynn Margulis, staunch believer in Gaia Theory, expositing her genuinely revolutionary journey to convince the world of her theory of symbiogenesis. The idea that evolution and the emergence of a new species isn’t exclusive to genetic manipulation, but can happen when two or more organisms who are so close in their respective environment that the lines between environment and self begins to blur and after a long time cease to be individuals at all.

The most famous example of symbiogenesis being the mitochondrion. A bacterium that cozied up with eukaryotic cells so intimately that it ceased to be able to function without its host. This cell was one of nature’s innovations that gave rise to, well, you and I!

endosymbiosis

noun

BIOLOGY
Symbiosis in which one of the symbiotic organisms lives inside the other.

In this time I’ve read much more and have much more to read still. I’ve been reading up on papers of morphogenesis and distributed intelligence (in particular those by Levin et al, a truly magnificent scientist!). Have read Dawkin’s “selfish gene”, which is well worth the read. Even Darwin’s classic, the “Origin of species” is awaiting me patiently on a table in the corner of my living room.

Not to even mention the countless guidebooks, catalogs and gardening books I have lying scattered around in my apartment.

I’ve gotten access to all of these books for an almost criminally low price thanks to having taken up a position in a small charity bookshop. Not only are they cheap, but I get access to the books before anyone else does. (Are you jealous yet? I am!)

Given my past year, you can imagine my excitement when I found this book in a box donated to us this past Wednesday. A classic, well-preserved and beautiful book about gardening? Count me in!

The garden at home, by H.H. Thomas, isn’t it beautiful?

Most of the curiosities like this book, pretty and old, I tend to buy with enthusiasm, where the books themselves end up collecting dust with equal enthusiasm in an awkward corner in my mess of an apartment somewhere.

But this one? “I have to have it, John!” “Laura.. it might be worth something, I’ll have to look it up.” “John, I don’t think you understand. This is mine.”, “Let me look up the price first-”, “You think I care about the price? It’s mine. If it’s worth € 50, I’ll pay € 50.”

“It’s € 45 online.” “Forty-five?” I thought, “I’ll do ten.” I continued in my mind.

“You can have it for € 3,50”

I took it home for € 3,50.

The book opens with a paragraph that reads equal parts sass, disappointment as it does as straight up hostile antagonism.

“Too often is the garden at home marred by the reproach of dullness that is apparent in every bed and border, in every walk—nay, in every weed. There is nothing individual in its charm; it has no glamour of its own. Its successes are those of a hundred others, and there is nothing characteristic even in its faults.

That is one hell of an opening paragraph. I know I got something special when I see it.

Continuing reading the preface, I learn that the book, besides its extravagant appearance, is in fact a book about gardening. Chapters on geraniums, roses, the autumn, how you should cut them, different varieties of gardens and much more.

Yet, there’s a thread that runs through the book that is obvious and apparent from the moment you lay gaze upon the cover.

The first chapter is called “Garden Magic”, the second “The Joy of Comparative Success” and the third “Plotting and Planning”.

Take this short excerpt from Chapter 1. “Garden Magic”.

Once the gardener becomes imbued with a love for plants and flowers, he finds that the discovery of one secret, the solving of one problem, satisfying though it may be, but opens up the way to many more. And so there arises an interest that is stimulated and sustained, now by failure, now by success, again by hope deferred, or by ideals realised. The strangers without the garden gates, those who have never solved one gardening problem, never pulled one weed, have no conception of the joy that follows in the train of even a Geranium well grown.

Oh my.

Genuinely. I’m captivated! This is gorgeous!

I know that often informative books start with a banger of a preface and introductory chapter that take a strong philosophical position as a sort of introductory summary of the thesis of the rest of the book, but turn practical once the shovel hits the soil (heh).

This book? I’m not so sure.

So I move on to the second chapter.

“Whom little will not, nothing will content”

How satisfactory for our peace of mind, how nice for the garden, and how salutary for our vanity, did we but recognise that success in gardening conforms to no standard, to no set rule, but is governed by a comparative test. But we don’t; hence heartburning that irritate and teach us to belittle our own modest achievements.

Because the professional gardener, fully equipped by his employer with every aid that garden craft can suggest, grows Chysanthemums 6 feet high and crowns each with a huge, mop-headed bloom, shall we whimper and whine and disparage our own though they are only 3 feet high, yet smothered in smaller blossom?

And because his elaborate Orchid houses, teak-build, water-tanked, and deftly-shaded, produce plants with sixteen spikes of bloom, shall we consign to the rubbish heap our that yield only six? Or because by lavish expenditure he gets Roses all the year round, and we only in summer and autumn, shall we give up Rose-growing as hopeless? Why should we? Is not the measure of success found in the pleasure that ensues? Most assuredly.

And we who only get flowers from our plants by much persuasion, probably appreciate them more than others to whom the finest come as a matter of course.

[…]

What quaint ideas some of us have on the score of gardening success! How bizarre are some of the results that seemingly give chief delight! If a Hollyhock or a yellow-faced, black-nosed Sunflower grows 10 feet high instead of its normal 5 feet or 6 feet, at once we write to the papers and record the fact.

[…]

Yet why this infatuated delight and exaggerated pleasure in something that is altogether abnormal, therefore not truly representative of the plants we grow? It arises from a false conception of the beauty of flowers, and the more we strive after big blooms and extraordinary stature, or some other unnatural feature, the less likely are we to appreciate plants and flowers in their usual proportions and showing their natural charm.

Ok. I’ve read enough philosophy and literature at this point to know that this book isn’t “just” about gardening. This is an exposition on a philosophy of life. A life where the beauty of the clade of flowering plants (Angiospermae! I learned in the past year!) takes a central role shaping the meaning of everyday life.

Where the virtues of modesty, humility and appreciation for that which is right in front of you are propagated through the medium of a garden held together by the hard work of your own hands.

Enthralling!

As you might have imagined at this point, I’m a bit of a dreamer. I have quotes of famous philosophers on my wall, I make generative art inspired by the natural world, I wear flower. The tagline of my personal site is;

I don’t dream, I create.

This book hit the right spot.

The third chapter is where it really takes off for me. This chapter is about dreams. Consider me sold.

Viewed from the warm fireside, the future of the garden is rosy, the seeds sprout without exception, grow green and come to blossom

I apologise for the long quotes, but they’re an integral part of the story I’m trying to tell, stay with me.

Is there any recreation comparable to that of plotting and planning a garden—that is to say, one’s own garden? I doubt if any at once so well occupies the present and fills the future with pleasant dreams, and he who dreams is happy, proof against the mischances of the moment, for his thoughts are fixed on a bright future. If to-day’s expectations are disappointed—well, there are to-morrows, and the glamour of romance still enshrines them.

Following shortly after this paragraph hits what I see as the core philosophical thesis of this “gardening” book.

But turn the beginner on the ground on a typical November day, when the sky hangs like a pall and a keen wind whistles through the trees, thrust a spade into his hands and bid him dig the cold, clammy soil, and even a modern Mark Tapley will scarcely survive the ordeal.

Yet seat him in his own inglenook with his slippered toes well warmed by logs in the open grate, ply him with gaudy catalogues full of coloured plates, showing favourite flowers twice as big as they really are, showing pink flowers red and red ones scarily, surround him with books about gardening that picture seductive green walks between borders full to overflowing with bloom, then you excite his imagination—he dreams dreams, sets up ideals and sees the result of his labour without counting the toil.

When winter wanes at the touch of spring, when the ground surface at least is dry and the sun breaks the drab sky into a patchwork of blue and grey, turn him out with spade and fork, and there shall be no looking back.

For spring is coming, winter is a thing of the past, his thoughts turn naturally to fresh young life, just as in autumn they turn to things that fade and fall and die.

At this point, I was sold. This book is beautiful. It’s a book about optimism, a book about turning dream to reality, a book about abundant beauty—nay, endless beauty (I did the same writing thingy as the author there!! Am I a good author now?)

At this point, I wanted to know more. So I turn to my LLM of choice.

I mention the book was written in 1912. I learned the book was English. Was that even a surprise at any point? I digress. Apparently the book was written during the “Edwardian” period, and that gardening was taken this seriously all throughout that time. I learn that this kind of engagement with the beauty of nature and the architecture that comes with it is called Naturalism.

Wait a god-damn second. 1912?!

What the fuck? Why were gardeners writing about dreams and libraries filled with gorgeous books of garden paths and peninsulas, dreaming up their ideal hedges and configuration of Roses and “even a Geranium” when the world around them was clearly on the verge of turning into not much less than a true hellscape? I’m no star at history, far from it, but surely there must have been some signs at that time that this isn’t quite the appropriate thing to keep yourself occupied with?

During this time, the Edwardian period, there was a significant shift occurring in politics in the parts of society that had been excluded from power. Around 30% of people lived in absolute poverty.

Source, wikipedia of course

I couldn’t help but feel some disturbing parallels to our current situation.

What happened that such astounding optimism was crushed? Is it not the people that make up a population, and a population the direction of a nation? Might this optimism have emerged from despair rather than being a naturally occurring transient optimism? There’s something peculiar about this dream-like book about gardening. Almost as there’s an illusory factor to this optimism.

How did the poor perceive these extravagant gardens?

Perhaps the most poignant of questions of all, if it takes all this work to maintain such a garden, months of planning, months of continued work, while meditating on the philosophy of comparison. Why was it called naturalism? Did we affix “nature” with the “-ism” at the end to signal that it was anything but natural?

If such a garden cannot be sustained without the hand of man, was it even worthy of being called "natural" in the first place?

While perhaps in the case of our eloquent English writer H.H. Thomas, who maintained his garden himself, in many cases it was professional gardeners maintaining all this manufactured beauty.

I can’t help but ask the most millennial question I can. Was this all just cope? Because I’m noticing something similar now.

There is dread and pessimism everywhere, for good reason. I don't know if you've seen the recent news, but Trump is funding actual and legitimate concentration camps at this point.

Iran has been attacked and a general has been killed by the US. The Russia-Ukraine war is ongoing, Israel and Iran have engaged in active warfare. China remains quiet, for now.

The EU has invested € 500 billion into its military, an injection with unprecedented speed.

I'm noticing people around me seeking refuge in dreams, I noticed it in myself as well. Some of my friends in the US are becoming harder to reach, because what used to be a social anxiety turned justified anxiety.

I'm safe here, in the Netherlands. I hope to remain safe for the coming decades, but given the current state of affairs there are no guarantees.

When things get truly dark, what refuge do you have but the illusionary? I'm investing my time and effort into what I believe is practical and good; volunteering for people with autism, creating software for education as well as volunteering in a second hand bookshop.

I notice I've been longing for a world that reads like the dream this book sets out the world of 1912 England to be. Longing for a dream that is reality. Yet it seemed that despite the people of 1912 England having been able to cast their dreams into a mould of vine, flower, bloom, rock, dell and fragrance, a dream garden, even if materialized maintained by the hands of the poor, these aren’t gardens! This is a theatre held together by the puppetry set in motion by sheer cope.

Despite my dreams, despite my art, despite my quotes, they’re just a distraction of reality. The dream garden I satisfy my dreams with is a lemon tree infested with wooly aphids. It produces lemons and, yes, it smells gorgeously in the summer when it blooms. But it’s somewhat sickly. There’s no perfection in nature. There simply is no such thing.

On the other side in within my apartment sit two Moringa leifera trees that have been battered by spider mites since their birth. Gaining and losing leaves in a cycle I feel ashamed of being unable to control. I should know better on how to care for these wondrous trees, but I don’t. Yet, their persistence gives me hope.

This poor tree has survived several attacks by my cats, has cycled through being at the edge of life to the stage where it is in the current picture at least 10 times due to a markedly persistent infestation of spider mites. I’ve even vacuum cleaned it once, whoops! Moringa is known as the miracle tree, and for good reason! It’s an inspiration in resiliency.

There’s plenty of good in my life. But when the landscapes around you turn into literal dreamscapes, are you living in reality, or have you poured your coping mechanism into chlorophyll and colourful porphyrins.

When has life truly been a dream for a people other than in the garden of eden? When has unfettered optimism meant anything but a forebode to the darkest of darknesses?

Lay dreams to rest in books, in film, in art and in the minds of children. If you dream of a garden as such, maintain it yourself; or become a monk and take the responsibility for such a thing if you see it as your true calling. There’s nothing wrong with seeking beauty beyond the natural.

Optimism like this is forceful and sticks out like a sore thumb. Not for lack of meaning, but because reality isn't a dream. It's reality. No day goes by with a daughter's or son's pet getting hit by a car. No hour without a thousand deaths of loved ones. No minute without a new cancer diagnosis, and no second without a person breaking down in utter delirium and depression.

Not to say that the world is hopeless, far from it. But to so deliberately carve a dream into physical spaces so blatantly? It signals despair; not abundance.

We cannot let our inability to deal with reality as it is forcefully scape our surroundings. Nature does not work that way, it works through ebbs and flows, symbioses and parasites.

Written with love, by an optimist living in what is hopefully just a temporary time of despair

~ Laura