JOY OF GARDENING

 

My gardening page is like an English herbaceous border—complex, chaotic, and full of surprises! I began it in the summer of 2005, so if you know anything about gardening, you know that it will take some time to grow.  As of now it resembles a wildflower garden.

 

I am a relative latecomer to gardening, despite having a mother with “green fingers” (UK), “green thumb” (US) (whoever changes these expressions around?), and two brothers who are keen gardeners (more below).   Part of the problem is that I lived in Nigeria for many years, and gardening in the tropics was more about vegetation control than nurturing!  Also, one did not want to deprive the local population of employment.  I must admit though that I did develop an interest in plants and trees thanks to frequent walks in the lush Botanical Gardens at the University of Ibadan, and to field trips with the Nigerian Field Society (an organization devoted to furthering knowledge of the natural and cultural life of Nigeria).  Going back further, my school in Birmingham, England was situated next door to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, and my mother used to take me round there sometimes after school.  In fact, my mother, Isabel B. Hackett, has been my primary inspiration and tutor in things horticultural.  She insists on the importance of Latin terms in identifying plants, for they can be so descriptive, e.g. grandiflora or large flowers, or foetidus  or bad-smelling.  She also repeats that gardeners are the greatest optimists.  Gardening makes you optimistic and keeps you going.  If you plant something, you want to know how it turns out…

 

I have taken to visiting gardens on my world travels, and to understanding the various ways in which people create (sacred) spaces which reproduce and capture nature for aesthetic enjoyment, therapeutic and spiritual transformation.

 

 

FAVORITE GARDENING WEBSITES

Beginning from where I currently reside, the wonderful University of Tennessee (Trial) Gardens.  You would have to join, as I have, the Friends of the UT Gardens

 

Move over the circus, The Greatest Show on Earth is now the annual garden show at Birmingham’s (the city of my birth) National Exhibition Centre (NEC), sponsored by BBC Gardeners’ World Live (the UK’s largest show for people who love their gardens and love gardening), and co-sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Society. Not only is the occasion graced by the royals (especially when they get roses named after them!), but it is a showcase for new trends in popular gardening such as natural gardening, plant-swapping, and the incorporation of vegetables into traditional garden settings,

 

The Royal Horticultural Society (the UK’s leading gardening charity dedicated to advancing horticulture and promoting gardening). They have a powerful statement of purpose: “The RHS believes that horticulture and gardening enrich people’s lives. We are committed to bringing the personal and social benefits of gardens and gardening to a diverse audience of all ages. Our goal is to help people share a passion for plants, to encourage excellence in horticulture in private and public spaces, to help create healthy, sustainable communities and support long term environmental improvements.” 

 

 

GARDENS AND ART

Check out this wonderful creative combination of a garden and African art at the British Museum

 

GARDENS AND HISTORY

I never was a great fan of history at school, but somehow am irresistibly drawn to the history of gardens.  There are some fabulous books around on the subject.  See the phenomenal Marie-Luise Gothein's History of Garden Art, a history of European garden design from Ancient Egypt to 1900 first published in 1913, and now updated to include British and American gardens.  You can see this online at the excellent www.gardenvisit.com website.

 

GARDENS AS SACRED SPACE

Being a scholar of religion, I am naturally fascinated in how gardens may be created or experienced as sacred space.  This is a great site for starting to look at this topic comparatively.

 

MY FAVORITE PLANTS

I love grasses. Blue Fescue (Festuca glauca) Silvery-Blue tufts for dry soils, great in stone troughs

You can’t beat Cotinus coggygria the beautiful purple smoke bush.

Last year I got turned on to Epimediums

More to come ….

 

MY FAVORITE GARDENS

Birmingham Botanical Gardens. I grew up in these gardens, next to my school.  They feature subtropical glasshouses and a wonderful cottage garden, as well as phenomenal rose beds.

 

 

Atlanta Botanical Gardens offer one of the most stunning collections of orchids one can see anywhere at the Fuqua Orchid Center.

 

Bodnant Garden is one of the most beautiful gardens in Britain.  It is situated in Wales, above the River Conwy, on ground sloping towards the west and looking across the valley towards the Snowdonia range.

 

 

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew : world-famous garden in Richmond, Surrey.

 

Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall, well known historical garden reconstruction project, was featured in the NY Times on May 15, 2005

 

Organic gardens are becoming popular.  The well-known Garden Organic Ryton, near Coventry, in the heart of England, was founded during the hippie era, but has new respectability due to the demand for healthy, organic produce.

 

 

JAPANESE GARDENS

Bamboo is integral to the Japanese garden.  As stated on the JapanGarden.co.uk website, “For over 2,000 years, bamboo has symbolized the intimate link between humanity and nature in the Far East. Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, has described bamboo as ‘yielding but triumphant.’"

 

For a Japanese show garden in Britain, click here. For stunning images of the Japanese garden at Compton Acres in the south of England, click here.

 

Take a look at the Japanese garden I created after returning from Japan in April 2005.

 

Conder, Josiah, Landscape Gardening in Japan (Dover, 1964)

 

 

SECRET GARDENS

 

Growing up in Britain, where gardens are more secluded and private (and never called ‘yards’!), and being a great fan of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s magical novel A Secret Garden, I am very drawn to the idea of a secret garden.  In fact, I have one myself and visit others when I can.  Check out this terrific list of secret gardens in the US, supplied by Home and Garden Television.

 

 

GARDENING ACTIVISM

I am discovering more and more how gardeners may not only make the world a more aesthetic, therapeutic and spiritual place, but also a more just and sustainable place.  I have been inspired in this regard by my encounter in the summer of 2004 with Rev. Marta Benavides, an eco-social activist who lives in the town of Nahuizalco, in the west of El Salvador. Marta works to help local peasants reclaim and develop their land.  She lives in an Ecological House where there is a recycling display, a medicinal herb garden, and low-maintenance and beautiful gardens, which offer sanctuary to butterflies and humans alike. Every Sunday, the House hosts all the area indigenous grandmothers for lunch. For Marta, caring for the earth is part of spirituality. She calls this her “theology of horticulture.”  For more details, click here.  I have now joined her support group in this country, Circle of Love.

 

Marta is a former Myles Horton Fellow and current board member of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee, renowned for its work in the areas of civil and labor rights, grassroots education, community activism training.  Since this is where I first met Marta and a group of other fine women, corralled into creating two flower beds for women staff members at Highlander, I decided to continue her work by forming THE GOOD KARMA GARDENING CIRCLE.  This serves as a Gardening Support Group of the Highlander Research and Education Center. Our goals are to:

 

  • To assist with landscape design and maintenance at the Highlander Center
  • To develop the concept of participatory gardening as activism
  • To educate on the therapy of gardens and gardening
  • To develop a network of activist gardeners and supporters

 

Our activities:

  • Meet twice-yearly at Highlander in spring and fall for planting, major maintenance, landscape design, and celebration
  • Visit Highlander for weeding and watering as appropriate
  • Networking of active and supportive gardeners through sharing of plants, ideas, and resources
  • Occasional lectures and retreats

 

Contact me if you are interested in being part of the GKGC!  See some of our efforts so far in this beautiful location.

 

Additional projects

GardenAfrica is a London-based aid organization (created in 2002) which creates and supports a wide-ranging program of garden-related projects across sub-Saharan Africa.  Using land adjacent to schools, hospitals, health and community centers—each garden is designed to meet specific local needs.  Focusing on health and nutrition, education and training, and income generation and recreation, GardenAfrica aims to improve productivity, welfare and quality of life among the most vulnerable.

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS

 

On the Sex of Holly Plants

Ask for details of the sex of the plant before purchasing at a garden centre (cultivar names are not always a good guide to their sex e.g. Ilex aquifolium 'Silver Queen' is a male plant while Ilex altaclerensis 'Golden King' is female.)  Most people do not realize that there are male and female plants in some plant families. Such plants are called Dioecious, which translates from Latin to mean, "two houses". Dioecious plants have flowers of only one sex per plant, such as ginkgo and holly.

 

 

SOME PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS

Plato once said that “every man, before he dies, should do four things: father a son, build a house, write a book, and plant a tree”

In his book Critias, Plato commented on the deforestation of Attica: "What now remains compared with what then existed is like the skeleton of a sick man, all fat and soft earth having wasted away, and only the bare framework of the land being left...there are some mountains which have nothing but food for bees, but they had trees not very long ago, and the rafters from those felled there to roof the largest buildings are still sound."

 

 

DON’T FORGET ECOLOGY

A friend and former colleague Dan Deffenbaugh, who did his doctorate in environmental ethics, strongly recommends this book for thinking about our impact as gardeners on the environment: Placing Nature: Culture and Landscape Ecology by Joan Iverson Nassauer.  Landscape ecology is a widely influential approach to looking at ecological function at the scale of landscapes, and accepting that human beings powerfully affect landscape pattern and function. It goes beyond investigation of pristine environments to consider ecological questions that are raised by patterns of farming, forestry, towns, and cities. 

Placing Nature is a groundbreaking volume in the field of landscape ecology, the result of collaborative work among experts in ecology, philosophy, art, literature, geography, landscape architecture, and history. Contributors asked each other: What is our appropriate role in nature? How are assumptions of Western culture and ingrained traditions placed in a new context of ecological knowledge? In this book, they consider the goals and strategies needed to bring human-dominated landscapes into intentional relationships with nature, articulating widely varied approaches to the task.

 

SO YOU PLAN TO GARDEN?

I love persuading people to get more into gardening.  But let’s be realistic: there is an aspect of drudgery, for which you need an attitude of right mindfulness.