The great garden debate

When I was a kid my mother and father had a serious disagreement about putting tinsel on the Christmas tree -- Dad was of the school who tossed it on rather randomly, while mom insisted on carefully placing it so it looked neat and "right."

That came to mind this July morning as my better half and I were working on the front yard garden -- I have over the years been letting that area fill in with ground cover, some of which is the "approved" kind and some the sort of invasive stuff that serious gardeners would pull out. I've been assembling rocks and driftwood, and so on in a manner I find pleasing, and letting the garden kind of run itself, within limits. The same with the back, lots of ground cover and basic stuff. The bunnies are happy out there, and the chipmunks. I keep the noxious weeds down but also tend to let it alone.

Well.
One could describe it as a Taoist sort of gardening, and one would think my spouse would like it. After all, she was born in the same Chinese province as the legendary founder of Taoism, Lao Tsu. But she is also a post-Mao-Cultural Revolution scientist, and takes a much more hands-on approach to the universe. Meaning, once she turned her attention to the garden, she was appalled. And once appalled, she's one to act. So now we are in sharp disagreement as to what comes next; a textbook garden, or the garden that wants to be.

And I'm not super-naive. I know that human existence and the universe are not wholly in synch; I like antibiotics and I don't like insect invasions, I will trap mice and so on. But I do think the universe needs to be respected to the extent possible, and that it's as nice to watch the garden grow what it wants as it is to design and train it to be what the human mind can conceive.

Bottom line, I guess, is that I have to decide what really matters, what things are worth fighting over, and to remember the old line from Hesse's Siddhartha, "Within you is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."

So I guess I'll tend my inner garden, and savor its weedy glory.