Fluid Gardening

Glen and Hastings

May 2006

I can see that these are going to be fluid landscapes. Not only do they change with the growing seasons, but in the last month or so, around 55 plants have been stolen (27 plants and 27 or so tulips cut off).

So now: how to respond to this? During the initial planting of sun garden #1 I (and many of my friends and family) fully expected that all of the plants might've disappeared the following day. I tried to contain my excitement as the only vandals the following day had brought were the crows after my bulbs. Each day that passed brought more hope for the longevity and potential of the project.

As the plants took root, my own attachment also took root into that soil. I knew better, but despite my ongoing efforts to remain divested and detached, the gardens and their contents (now the sun garden doubled and a shade garden in the alley) begain to seem like they would be permanent fixtures.

After about 6 month, there had been no vandalism and in fact, a few people had added elements of their own : a butterfly lawn ornament showed up one day and a duck head (broken umbrella handle) had been placed in the sun garden a few days before that.

At one point, a day lily went missing. I thought it odd that someone would steal it in March or so--to the untrained eye it would just look like a few long leaves. There were other colorful plants around it, but maybe the person knew what they were doing. The day lily might've been the most expensive plant out there. But, right before the daylily was stolen, I had come accross a bunch of lilies that had been in a rubbish heap in our alley. Another house was throwing out a bucket so excitedly scooped up the lillies and brought them home in the bucket!

Now that I've thought about it, I've realized that they'd perform differently, but I initially shrugged off the day lily loss, excited that I just happened to have some replacement lillies. (and I happened to find some day lillies on sale a few months later for $10 cheaper anyways!)

This seems to be the pattern of the gardens. As plants disappear, new ones present themselves. It's fluid gardening. (Sometimes with an alarmingly high turn-over rate!) For some time, I had been poring over library books on gardening, analyzing yards, drawing diagrams, all in the name of finding the perfect sustainable landscape designs for the gardens. I now realize that the design of these gardens will be much more liquid than any of my research can predict. It's as if the gardens are my hands cupping water, some water slips through my fingers but then friends and strangers top it up.