Wild Garden

“You can’t plant in the spring and leave in the summer.” Bruce Grill said at the Harriton House when introducing us to the cluttered community garden (October 2012). “The plants grow everywhere”, Bruce continued. The plants were everywhere indeed. The tomatoes and the squash were mingled together in a corner and some sort of red flowers were hiding among tall grass, which people define as “weeds”. However, isn’t the community garden a great example of “wild gardens” Michael Pollan is talking about in his essay Weeds are Us? People spend too much effort into cultivating an “ideal” garden that always turns out to be too artificial. And no matter how hard people try, nature will always find a way to creep into the fences and make its own wonders. Even on the well-weeded and well-trimmed grass on my site, I find many “intruders”: several cluster of clovers, one dandelion, and other clusters of unknown species.  These aliens managed to escape from the sharp razor that “beheads” the field grass that surrounds them and survive the dreadful potions that are designed to kill “weeds”. Human can’t defy nature. The nature in these clovers and dandelion dictated them to reside on the grass and people can do little about this. “The bees goes whenever they pleases.” said Bruce. I think it is the same thing with gardening. The “weeds” decide to grow in the gardens whenever they please, people can’t simply arrange a garden.