What is gardening?

Working far away from where I live, I get plenty of time each day in my car to let my mind wonder. New ideas for work, what I'll do this weekend, or even global politics are often subjects my brain decides to meander through. However recently my mind has been occupied on a different question, one a bit more personal. What is gardening? And what is it for you?

If we go by the dictionary gardening is "the activity of tending and cultivating a garden, especially as a pastime". This seems fairly simple to me, it's correct, but it doesn't really tell us much at all. Why do we even garden at all?  Is it purely for a pastime? To me gardening is a lot more complex, and the further I think about it, the more I get enveloped by a sense of meaning behind it. Gardening is very difficult to define with a more detailed approach, simply because it's different to each individual person. It's like trying to define happiness, one person could feel eating ice cream is the pure definition, while another may think that ice cream is disgusting. Does this mean either is wrong?

To begin to understand what gardening is to me, I decided to do a bit of research into why gardening exists in the first place. I picked up a book in the local charity shop called "The History of Gardens" by Christopher Thacker. In the opening chapters, the author describes the ancient idea of a sacred grove, an area of land touched by the gods, where all fauna and flora thrive in great beauty. Ancient myth is littered with stories of the heroes finding solace in such places, of magical beings such as dryads residing over them, and of the bountiful fruits which are grown. It's not a long shot to imagine that these stories sparked imagination and creativity within the people, inspiring them to try to replicate these areas so they too could find the magic in them. A human effort to try to replicate, or even best, nature itself. If this is true, then gardening could be described as the effort to recreate natural, or even mythical, beauty in your own location.

History is more than myths and legends however. While gardens could have come about for a vain approach at beauty, you could argue it was for far more practical purposes. Think of an allotment, or even a small cottage herb garden, and then compare it to a farm. In essence, is it not just a more miniaturised, personal farm? For thousands of years, humans have developed agriculture, from the bread basket which was Carthage, to the olive groves of Rome. While these fields were designed to feed large swathes of the population, the principles could be copied to create a smaller area for someone to grow their own produce. A subsistence  lifestyle was a widespread phenomenon for millennia for large parts of the worlds population, and the skills which come with it would be applicable to bridging the gap between growing out of necessity and growing for pleasure. Human imagination and creativeness is a powerful tool, and all it would have taken was for someone to say "hey, if I can grow wheat, I wonder if I could grow that flower over there?" and the whole idea of horticulture is born.

Not being a historian, these theories have little evidence on my behalf to back them up, but are merely a thought, and even if they prove to be false, i have begun to try and deconstruct the idea of gardening in my head, and by thinking on the possibilities of why it started I may be able to understand why I garden.

If we fast forward a few thousand years, we reach the Renaissance, and the images of grand areas of tightly controlled buxus hedging, carefully trimmed to shape. Everyone can recognise the formal gardens of this period, be it from seeing it on tv, or even visiting nearby manor houses. This Italian idea of gardening brings about feelings of grandure, power, and am overal structure to nature. The exactness of the corners, the symmetry and the scale are all designed to try and impress the guests. The owners would use them as venues for parties, inviting everyone who is anyone there to marvel at their dominance over nature. I suppose this theme is still present today in the more modern gardens often sighted in cities. Large man made structures, straight edges and tidied foliage eminate the feeling of control. It's that feeling of control which I think may be the definition of gardening for some. The ability to create nature in your garden, to your specific wishes and ideas and in a way reinforcing the ever present ideology of mankind being at the top of the food chain and therefore in charge of the world.

I look at these gardens and can't help feel to myself that there is something missing in them. Yes, we can in some aspects control nature and bend it to our will, but does that mean we should? An area outside so controlled and over designed makes me just feel that it would have been better off inside a house, with artificial plants instead, giving true control. However maybe the reason why they are outside is that it gives in to the fact that realistically nature can always find its own way to defy us, and therefore maybe it's actually more of a statement of the contrasting nature of the building to the surrounding wilds, a comprise between the man made and the natural.

On the opposite side of he spectrum we have the nature itself. Lately, as I've delved further into horticulture, I've found myself becoming fonder of all things natural. I take walks up the local hills and just sit in silence, taking in the sound of the sheep in the fields, the smells from the nearby flowers and the sight of birds, hunting around for food. In these moments I feel a certain peace within myself which I just can't replicate within the urban environment. As I walk through the woods, I can feel a presence, a life from within the trees. When you hear old tales of living trees, or fairies and other magical occurrences within the wood you at first dismiss them as nonsense, but when standing alone, surrounded by trees in the eerie silence you can understand how these tales came about. you become aware of your surroundings, the little details you missed before. The insects on the leaf litter, chewing away. The distant sound of a stream. The way ivy crawls up dieing trees. You feel that this is something bigger than you, something much more important, and you gain respect from the realisation that the world is a much larger place than we think, and the affairs of ourselves mean nothing to the ancient forces of nature. This feeling, his respect, is what I think is my definition of gardening.

To me, gardening is about grabbing a bit of this nature, bringing it home and caring for it, learning from it and respecting it. It's about understanding the nature of the plant, knowing what it needs, where it lives naturally, and trying to replicate it's natural environment at home. And bringing nature to your home, to me, is important. It is easy to forget that feeling you had in the woods after a while of living in a city. You loose touch with nature, and the garden is your way of regaining that connection. Ofcourse we cannot truly copy natures randomn designs in a space where we live, so there still remains the element of human control, however by understanding why we have this control, we can make a conscious effort to create a compromise. Gardening gives me the ability to give something back to the world. I can create habitats for local wildlife, preserve rare species of plant, or even create a whole new breed. We have the power in this world to create, manage and control aspects of nature, and I believe it's our responsibilities to take upon this burden as protectors, rather than rulers. By understanding the living things in your garden, you create a link with nature, and an understanding and awareness of your impact on the environment on the wider scale. I've certainly become more aware and invested in issues such as climate change since my adventure into horticulture.

Gardening to me is the connection between man and nature. However, the beauty of gardening is that it can mean different things to different people, and no one true meaning is the correct one. You may read this and think it's a load of nonsense and gardening is something entirely different. But I, sure we can all agree one thing, gardening is a personal experience, which we share with others.

Alpines by Alexander

Alpine plants are not a thing of rarity. You pass them as you walk down to the shops. You see them poking out of cracked walls or emerging from stony planters. Yet for some reason, I had always ignored their existence. Maybe it was just my familiarity to them that I had never stopped to really look at them. This all changed a couple of months ago.

A work colleague of mine saw my interest in gardening and suggested one day that we visit a place near London which would open my eyes to the wonders you could grow. With little else to do on a Tuesday off from work, we headed off to RHS Wisley.

Wisley is an amazing place. It is the gardeners equivalent of being a little kid in a sweet shop. Every type of plant you could every imagine is here, growing on acres and acres of well kept garden. Trees, shrubs, water lilies, and even giant cacti grew in this vast expanse of gardeners delight. We spent hours wandering the windy paths, through glades of apple trees and sheltered forests filled with ferns. But one thing stood out to me the most. There was two small greenhouses near the center of the site, deep within the colourful gardens and awe-inspiring herb plots. We could have easily walked straight past them, glaring at the alley flanked by ancient bonsai trees. However for whatever reason I was intrigued. 

Within these greenhouses I found some of the most interesting plants I had ever seen. Plants which looked like they had been shrunk to miniature sizes by some sort of shrink ray. Others which spread over rocky outcrops to form green living pillows. I had seen similar before: in house plant areas of various shops and thought of those as exotic plants which needed precise care and attention. Yet these grew outside around the greenhouses, thriving on the rocky walls and gravel filled container. I asked colleague eagerly about these. Evergreen plants? This beautiful and small? Which can grow in some of the harshest conditions? Why had I not noticed these before?!

Fast forward to a week ago. With a new job and a new location my mind had been elsewhere and i had nearly forgotten about what I had discovered in Wisley. Then one day I came across a stand full to the brim of alpine plants. My mind flashed back to the plants I had seen around those greenhouses. I HAD to get myself some. I spent days deliberating how I would plant them, where I would plant them, when I would plant them. Finally I formulated an idea and took the dive. I selected three of the finest and most interesting varieties I could find and hastily drove home.

I purchased a couple of terracotta pots and some compost with good drainage, and set about putting my plan to life. I grabbed a slab of stone which had been sitting in my garden for years, and carefully chiselled away chunks of it to form an aid to drainage, making sure to leave some of the rock to use later. I added the compost which had been recommended on a website, John Innes no2, and filled most of the way up. I sprinkled some Westland Garden Magic onto the soil in hopes of giving my alpines a boost, and carefully placed the plants into the pot.

After adding a bit more compost and a touch of spicing up with the remaining rock, I had created these:

In the first container I planted the alpine which first caught my eye, the Moss Campion (Silene Acaulis). What had attracted me to this was its unusual shape. It grows like moss, forming a lushous green mound, bearing a striking resemblance to the local rolling hills of Somerset. When it flowers, stems emerge and create pink flowers, as if tiny bulbs emerging from a miniature lawn.

For the second container I chose to create something similar to the containers I had seen before. I used the remains of the rock to replicate a rocky outcrop, the environment where alpines are naturally found. I wanted to use a larger chunk as a back piece to the pot to provide some height difference. I selected a Sempervivm Atlas and a Nifty Thrifty (Armeria) for this pot, aiming to get a varied selection for my pot display. The atlas caught my eye as it forms a rigid cluster of flowers, whose tips fade into red, To me it looked alien. I could imagine a gigantic version of this plant growing on some distant planet as explorers trek into the unknown.  The armeria on the other hand brings a bit of normality into the pot, with traditional shapes and colours. Although the least unusual of the three, it retains its own beauty with its pink flowers shooting up from its grass-like mound.

After a clean up and a bit of thinking, the pots were placed on the patio, soaking in the suns rays. Careful to put them in full sight of anyone entering or leaving the house, I hope that visitors will notice, allowing me to spread my appreciation of these truly stunning plants.

But this is merely an exploratory paddle into the ocean of alpines. If anyone has any tips, suggestions, or has noticed anything I may have done wrong, I would be delighted to hear from you!