When we experience something remarkable, we want to talk about it – we’re social animals. It’s frustrating when we can’t. It’s even more unsettling when we can’t because we’re without words to make sense of powerful concepts and heightened emotions.
I lived with a garden for a while that was an example of the most sophisticated level of horticulture, and it had a huge impact on my life. Not being able to explain it to anyone was odd and difficult, but the ideas that drove the garden were far beyond the way people normally talk about gardens.
I can list its plants in Latin and English — Dipsacus fullonum (Teasel), Aster tataricus (Tatarian Aster), Perilla frutescens (Beefsteak Plant). I can talk about its site on the banks of a pond, with frogs jumping and snakes making unexpected appearances. I could tell you who gardened it and what her training was, I can tell you its history, and the way it fit into the public garden organization it was a part of.
But I can’t tell you about what made this garden unbelievably successful, what gave it the kind of impact that only a major cultural work can have.
The reason is this: There’s no structure for a conversation about what ornamental horticulture means.
This garden sang. It engaged. It overwhelmed. It was a once-in-a-lifetime garden. And, in fact, this garden made incredibly satisfying sense. But there are no words to convey that.
This blog is an effort to explain that garden. If it were a piece of music, I could draw from an enormous body of published theory to begin such a conversation; if it were a sculpture, I could begin immediately with a set of technical terms. But, bizarrely, ornamental horticulture provides almost nothing in the way of a context for discussion. We have to start at the beginning.
Gardening is important. It’s worth the work.