Patience is a Virtue


I am not a patient person. If my mother were still alive, she'd tell you as much. My best friends would tell you the same. It seems like I've been practicing patience my whole life, and generally failing at it. As I was reminded a great many times in my life - "Rome wasn't built in a day." 
I write this as I grapple with my desire to finish my landscape (is a landscape ever truly "finished"?) and my inner comprehension that to do so will take more time and planning. You see, landscapes are not built in a day either.
The other day, a person who posted a comment to something I had written asked me if I was rich.......... Seemingly, the fact that I was not simply letting the "native" weeds take over my landscape and actually planting real plants seemed to be a pastime for the truly wealthy.  So, for all of you that might also wonder, I am not rich. I have become more patient. It may not be apparent to some of my friends, but I actually am.  Not patient, just more so than I used to be.
I am a firm believer in planned landscapes. I'm also a believer in doing some basic research before I plant. That research includes making a list of the native species that interest me and finding out more about their use in a landscape and their use by the rest of the living world. It also includes fully understanding my planting site. It's not just about the basic soils and light that I've inherited, but about how these things change with the seasons. Such research takes time with a site before everything gets planted.
Over the years of living in this region of the country I've gotten better at knowing which species I most want to add to a landscape, but it has taken decades to get to where I am today in that regard. Over that time, I have made a great many mistakes and killed a great many more plants. I've added species that have overwhelmed their neighbors and had to be removed. I've put many more into settings that they simply were not adapted to. Despite this, I've learned from it. Mistakes are perhaps the best teaching tool available to us. I've definitely learned much more from them than I've learned from my successes.
It takes time and patience to learn which plants are best able to achieve your gardening objectives. Daily, I see posts in social media by folks who are zealously adding to their "pollinator gardens" by simple neglect, unaware of which species they should be promoting and which species might better suit their objectives. I suspect that many of these folks will someday lose this zeal and either adopt a more traditional landscape approach or they will do what I did decades ago - learn their plants and make more informed choices. Patience is a virtue.
Even after 30+ years of doing this in Florida, I am still debating which plants I should add to what I've already planted. That's the way it should be, Each spot I plant takes a place away from something else. Before I run out of space, I need to be sure that I'm giving space to those species that will best thrive and serve my ecological objectives.
I've spent years, literally, preparing my move to this new landscape. My littlehip and green haws (Crataegus spathulata and C. viridis, respectively) were started from seed I collected three years ago. Many of the wildflowers that I've already planted were grown from seed collected more than a year ago from the plants I had in my former residence. Most of those were grown from seed I've collected over the years during my travels/hikes across the state. I keep a mental list of wildflowers and woody plants that I want to develop some landscape experience with. If I can purchase a few from a native plant nursery, I do so. It is the ONLY way we encourage the wider spread of the use of natives. Without our native-plant nursery partners, the native landscape industry will not expand and become truly accepted. You don't have to purchase hundreds of plants IF you take the time to propagate a few more from the plants you purchase. This is especially true for wildflowers and native grasses.
I have very specific goals in my new landscape so I have very specific wants regarding my plant list. I've waited years, sometimes more than a decade, to find a source of something I want. Perhaps that's patience; maybe simply stubbornness. I don't think it really matters. I believe that our landscapes are a reflection of ourselves and that they should be diverse as well as functional. To do that requires patience, not income. Get outdoors, learn the names of your local plants, research their growing needs, understand your own landscape setting and THEN set about to plant it. 

Comments

  1. Cats&PlantsApril 23, 2019 at 11:00 PM

    "It seems like you are rich" was mostly about your access to plants. I may elaborate in a comment on that post. (I'll try to get to it within a few days.)

    I enjoy that the post after this is about your access to plants.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hawthorn HillMay 2, 2019 at 4:35 AM

      Thank you. Rich in friends and in experiences. The parts that count

      Delete

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