Why Do We Garden? #2

Gardening is never done, is never complete, is never totally under control.  To garden is to inhabit a world where the need to create order, design, form comes up against the forces of chaos, unpredictability and serendipity.  We have to face the fact that we are attempting to impose our will on a patch of ground - and it will resist.  

This is not because nature is ‘bloody-minded’.   It is more that we are part of a universe that is neither totally orderly nor totally disordered.  In technical terms, the universe and our garden, are “chaotic”.  As we try to impose order, it will inject the unpredictable - not do exactly as it is told.   In this way, gardens are a bit like adolescent children: they naturally resist parental control but will sometimes comply if cajoled, encouraged, nagged or screamed at. 

A gardener has to be an intelligent, loving and firm parent figure to the forces of nature that wish to grow wild and free.  Maybe the gardening personality is one in which the need to to have control is balanced with the need for acceptance.  Maybe the gardener is one who is seeking to come to terms with the universal laws of chaos.  Are you involved in the struggle between order and chaos?