Rhythm of Gardening and Life

Some gardeners find Fall a sad time, others a time of badly needed rest after the exhausting season of work behind them. The Fall cutting back and raking is done. The dried and yellowing foliage is gone, hauled off to the mulch pit.
What remains can be a sad reminder of times glorious blooming past. Instead, I like to think of the autumn of a garden’s life as a precious opportunity to take stock, literally and figuratively, of what needs to be done to encourage new growth once the long, hard winter is past.
For starters, even after the annual garden cleanup, in Fall the plant structure is still there, pruned back but still very identifiable. It becomes easier for a gardener to see the crowding for what it was, plan objectively to deal with the excesses that can quickly turn the garden into a jungle next year.
In the young Spring garden, it can be more difficult to distinguish what goes and what stays or delude ones’ self that those plants aren’t going to be elbowing one another for space in just a matter of weeks. I usually feel so relieved my plants have survived the harsh winter, that I am reluctant to get out the spade and do what needs to be done and tame that first wild rush of new growth, until it becomes a back-breaking business.
The Fall garden is beyond such well-meaning but misplaced sentimentality. I can see at a glance where the iris are impinging on the astilbe, where the border plants are getting out of hand. Walking my Fall garden provides a sense of distance, the precious wisdom to see where work needs to be done if my garden is to continue to grow and flourish next season.
Even though the leaf mold wreaks havoc with my allergies, I love that fallow time as I fix in my mind’s eye one last time how beautiful it all was. The garden and the plants have done their work all summer. I have done mine. Even the winter to come cannot change that reality, the wonderful memories of what was accomplished.
Maybe some of these thoughts have contributed to making gardening the number one hobby in the U.S. In the seasonal rhythm of the garden’s life, the gardener can gain deep insights into the changes and wrenches of their own.
As creatures we are meant to grow and bloom. There is no ‘retirement’ from that cycle, from the flowering and losses that define our years and days. A good gardener learns from experience. A good gardener understands the discipline of pruning and weeding, of setting boundaries for themselves, their gardens and those plants. Gardening is about life and vice versa. Good stuff, all of it.