why garden?
Forgive this long letter; I don’t have time to write a short one.
—George Bernard Shaw
Blotanical is asking garden bloggers to answer a simple question this month: Why do I garden?
But there’s a catch: The answer has to be SMS-sized, 160 characters or less! The brief answers are quick and easy to read. To write one is not.
Here’s my attempt:
I garden in order to glimpse nature’s processes and rhythms, because my garden takes care of me at least as much as I take care of it, and because all our gardens matter more than we’ll ever know.
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PS: If you don’t know Blotanical, you should. It’s a great online community of international garden bloggers that has recently surpassed the thousand-blog mark. If you figure several years of experience for most of the bloggers, you could consider that the site gives you easy access to several thousand years of combined gardening experience—plus all the bloggers’ great stories! Gardeners are the best people, and this site will prove it.
November 29 2008 05:02 am | Categories: gardening • quotes | Tags: philosphy • why people garden
Helen/patientgardener on 29 Nov 2008 at 6:54 am #
I can really empathises with the sentiment in this post. It is what I was trying to say in mine.
lostlandscape on 29 Nov 2008 at 7:19 am #
Helen,
Thanks for stopping by!
It will be interesting to see all the comments gathered together in one place. There will be similar threads going through them, I’m sure, but there are already emerging interesting and subtle differences in the reasons I’ve read that will make me rethink my own relationship to the garden.
Midwest Mom on 30 Nov 2008 at 11:35 am #
I like that you wrote “my garden takes care of me”…
I feel the same.
Thanks for the info on Blotanical, too.
Philip on 12 Dec 2008 at 1:51 pm #
I love your composition! That speaks to me.
Philip on 12 Dec 2008 at 1:51 pm #
Oh, and the quote by Shaw is brilliant!
lostlandscape on 12 Dec 2008 at 4:00 pm #
Philip,
Isn’t it?! (the Shaw, I mean!) Everyone I know has heard it from me at least once. The quest for that which is distilled to perfection: perfect length, perfect proportions…it’s the essence of art. (And thanks for the kind words on my little statement. I think however that the topic deserves a much longer treatment from all of us.)
Sue on 23 Dec 2008 at 4:17 pm #
Congratulations on winning the competition! I enjoyed reading your post.
Sue
Sue on 23 Dec 2008 at 4:35 pm #
I need to apologize for being so scatterbrained. I thought the list was in order of the winners, so now I have to go back to the others I congratulated and explain what I was thinking. I had not read the part where he drew numbers.
Well, I liked your post, anyway.
lostlandscape on 23 Dec 2008 at 5:04 pm #
No problem, Sue! I liked all the responses. Everyone has such great reasons to garden!