A time for everything

‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…to be born, to die, to plant, to uproot, to kill, to heal, to tear down, to build, to weep, to laugh, to mourn, to dance, to scatter, to gather,, to embrace or not, to search, to give up, to keep, to throw away, to tear, to mend, to be silent, to speak, to love, to hate, to have war and a time for peace’ (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

I don't often quote the bible, but as a gardener I have learned to let the seasons of the year dictate my activities in the landscapes where I live and work. I have learned this through many years of watching nature go through her cycles of the seasons. Paying attention to what happened each season and how what I did during one season affected the landscape in later seasons.

This first photo is of a forsythia that was trimmed down in winter. It was a slow time of year, a dry day perhaps and it would save some time later in the year when things got busier.

The second photo is of a forsythia that had been trimmed in the late spring of last year. These photos were taken the same day.

To trim a forsythia a month or two before it blooms, cutting off and throwing away the glorious show of flowers the plant took all year to grow is something that I do not understand. It just goes against everything that Ecclesiastes was saying in the bible quote I opened with, and while I am not a religious man in the formal sense I do believe Ecclesiastes spoke the truth.

Here's another couple of photos of two sward ferns that happen to be planted 30 feet apart. Again, the photos were taken the same day. The one that did not get trimmed has looked pretty good all winter while the one that got trimmed in December has looked like a brown hedge hog the last 4 months. While I have to admit that trimming the fern in early winter has saved some time, I have to ask; Was it really worth 4 months of looking like a hedge hog was squatting in front of the welcome mat?

"There is a time for everything....." The incident of the forsythia and the fern are small, and perhaps insignificant and I am sure some would say the convenience of saving time far outweighed the waste of the flowers of the forsythia and the long winters ugliness of the fern. I'm just an old fashioned hopeless starry eyed dreamer; I believe as a gardener it is my job to bring the beauty, wonder and grandeur of nature to others.

The person who trimmed the forsthia and the fern above may have done their job as a landscape mantenance person but as a gardener they have failed.

I will stop now with just a couple of photos of some of the trees here at Rose Villa. And during this spring time of year so filled with renewal and rebirth, please dont just maintain, be a gardener.