Walking the crooked line...

All my life I have tried to walk a straight line.  Be good, do right, work hard.  If there is an instruction manual I have read it and followed each step diligently.  Sometimes the manual is even accurate and things work.

But, as I have grown older I have found that sometimes doing things by the book is not the only way to go about it.

Take my garden for example.  All the pics I post here are from my garden ( except for Kimmie's tree dancer).  So it is obvious I can grow stuff.  I always have followed the planting guides and the care instructions as closely as I could.  I have keep an indexed card box of the plant tags with additional information about each plant.  

Recently I came across that box and as I flicked through it I saw so many plant names and types that have long since perished in my garden and I began to chuckle softly to myself.  It dawned on me that nothing ever goes quite as planned and I have probably killed 20 plants for each one that lives in the garden right now.

Some of my plants have been moved 3, 4 and even 5 times - in a determined attempt to find the right spot for them.   As time has passed some of them have found their home and have flourished.  That spot is not what was recommended on the plant tag.  That spot is not what all the well meaning gardeners within my acquaintance have suggested.  In fact some of my plants are growing best in a location precisely where they should have perished.

What does this tell us?  Does it mean that I am one helluva good gardener?  Not at all, as I said I have killed hundreds if not thousands of plants in my time.  I think it tells us something about life. I think it tells us that despite being hybridised to repulsive extremes and despite being sown and raised in hothouses all over the world and despite being sold with the strictest instructions attached, a plant will do its utmost to survive.  Just like any other creature on this planet. Just like this bulb below - exposed to the elements notwithstanding, it is trying its hardest to survive even as the mulch around it is subsiding.

So while many will perish, others will not.  Survival of the fittest.  All hail Darwin - in this he was right.

With all this in mind I recently planted a punnet of corn bought from the local plant nursery.  I had the punnet for a week trying to devise a way to create a vegie garden where I did not have one.  In the end that sad index card box of plant history gave me the solution.  Plant anywhere I heard it saying to me.  So I did.  In between my pomegranate and pear trees, amongst some parsley, chives, oregano, irises and other flowering bulbs we interspersed 3 rows of young corn seedlings.  At the rear of them are some shrubs against the fence line.  I stood back and surveyed.  So what if that is not a true vegie garden.  So what?

I have since planted 2 tomato plants in one pot - I can hear my father now !!!!

I have planted  4 varieties of salad vegies in another large pot.

I have planted broccoli in one tray and more salad in another.

All that, along with the corn amongst the bushes, should do us.... Oh yes I forgot the zucchini in still another large pot.

The parsley, garlic, chives and oregano growing near the corn is all self sown from the old vegie garden I had.  Hubby keeps asking me why I let it grow wild like that.  All I can say is - why not?  Personally I like it.  It is ordered chaos, a natural chaos.  Survival of the fittest.  Who would ever tell you to grow herbs in amongst your shrubs in an area that is heavily mulched.  I don't think anyone would.  And why can't you plant some vegies in pots and put them on the patio with the gardenia, spathiphyllum, bird's next fern and other various potted plants that are traditionally on the patio?

Well... you can.  And just as you can improvise with your plants, you can improvise with your life.  Who is to say what will work and what will not.

The moral of the story is - try something different. It may not work...but what it if does? What if it takes you in directions you never imagined for yourself. What if...........

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