Memorial Day-it was busy, breezy, warm-great.

  In the back of my mind is how it came to be that I am free .  Free to garden, free to pursue my interests. Free to consider doing things differently. Free to speak my mind.  Free to travel,  free to think,  free-as nature intended.  Free to plant, reconsider, reorganize.  Free, to change my mind.

Freedom does not come without a price.  On my mind today are all the people who protect my freedom. I do not know their names.  I do not know their stories.  I do not need any information beyond this,  really. I live in a country that values freedom above all else.  I am so lucky to live here; I am so lucky to have them. Not knowing the names of the people who protect my freedom, I honor them; all of them.

  Think of it-we are the only nation on earth that values, and protects  freedom, and  the sanctity of individual expression.  If  you should be an organic farmer, or an orchardist with a passion for delicious fruit, or a restaurant serving fresh and delicious food, or a gardener scooping up what the world has to deliver to better your garden,  or a simple  citizen  planning for your child’s graduation -hear this.  Honor those who protect you.

There is a big  group of people, nameless, who’s stories I  don’t know, who make many things possible for me, and you.  We are the only nation on  earth that values freedom to the extent that you and I enjoy.  Are we not so lucky?

Those troops who protect our country, and our way of life-treasure them.  I am thinking about them today, Memorial Day.

Sometimes a sense of what not to do in a garden can be as valuable as a sense of what would be good to go ahead with.  Up front, I would say I like all manner of gardens; I have only seen a few I did not like.  I think talent is local-not geographically confined to New York, Paris, Milan, and Los Angeles.  I see very talented people, making incredibly interesting things everywhere I go.   I have my dark moments, but I try to limit the time I spend on those. I certainly don’t want to devote too much space here to the no word.   But some things I avoid, when I can.

The World Series of Gardening:  Though the English would try to convince you of such,  given the years, time, and effort they have spent throwing the Chelsea Garden Show, there is no such thing as a Landscape and Gardening World Series.  The World Series applies to baseball, nothing else.   Once you garden for what someone else might love, or gasp about,  plan on your resentment to rise accordingly. Who wants to be admired for something you planned to elicit approval? Be true to your own ideas.   Gardening is about a stew of self expression and science, seasoned by nature.  Someone once told me the definition of an expert is someone brought in from out of town at great expense.  No kidding.  Trust your instincts and imagination, as long as you do no harm. Don’t put off getting help, if you need it.  I most admire individual and genuine expression-no matter what form that takes.  No one else’s expression threatens yours, period.

Don’t worry your garden.  I subscribe to the notion that most plants have an incredibly strong will to live. I try to let them be, as much as possible.  I enrich the soil with compost, I plant properly, I water: I make sure the soil is fertile.  Then I try to stand back, and appreciate what is miraculous about the natural world.  I don’t dust, sweep, polish, wash or straighten up, to excess.  Nature doesn’t need a whole lot of intervention from me-she’s been at the business of life many millions of years.

Don’t ignore the big picture.   Anyone who caretakes a piece of land,  is gardener-like it, or not.  A title to a piece of land,  is a piece of paper which is mostly about human community, and nothing about the stewardship of the earth we are so lucky to have.  Take care of what is entrusted to you-its a responsibility.  Keep your property up-this is appreciated by all your neighbors.  The weather applies equally to everyone-what are you thinking, planting tropical annuals in advance of warmer soil temperatures?  Tune in to the natural rhythm of things-don’t insist on your agenda.  I regret the big numbers of beautifully grown plants killed by too early, or too late a planting.

 There are so many great products available to gardeners; but there are people who misuse that science. Read the directions.  More may not be better.  Be caring;  think before you apply.

Most of all, don’t fail to understand that this planet is occupied by tens upon thousands of living things-all equally important.  Your voice is one of many.  Most true gardeners I meet understand this.

I have spent the last two days, and Memorial Day yet to come, talking to gardening clients about what to do.  What pots are right?   What shall I plant in those pots?   What trees would be good; I need some shade.  How can this perennial garden be a little better  than last year?  What is my problem, that I can’t grow columbines? What do I do about the woodchucks, the chipmunks, the rabbits, the neighbor’s dog and the Japanese beetles?  What will tolerate all the wind off the lake, the heat of the pavement, the soccer ball?  There’s excitement in the air;  the season is in session.  There’s grumbling about the cold spring, the vicious winter that claimed this old tree wisteria and heaved up a slew of new perennials planted a shade too late the previous fall.  We are talking about graduation parties, potato salad,  where to get grill parts, do you favor powerwashing decks, or not?   Needless to say, given all the activities that come with being able to live a little outdoors,  I have talked a lot the past 2 days.

But the best advice I have: plan your moves.  Pick a project. A reasonably sized project. Master plan the next 5 years of your landscape in the winter. If your landscape is important, its not a Memorial Day emergency.  If your garden is an emergency, its not that important.  Get organized.  Cut out pictures of things you like.  Make a file; write your thoughts, then figure out what about each picture interests you-with people there are threads that can be woven together to make something.  If you try for everything and everywhere all at once, nothing will be thoroughly executed, and everything will show the lack of focus.  We Americans live such crazy lives-take a two hour lunch, and dream a little.

  Read up on all those annuals and perennials you see only in leaf-do not succumb to buying only those things you see in bloom. So much of a garden is about seduction-give in to it, but be good natured about the outcome.   Do not succumb to pictures in catalogues-a photograph records only 1/125 of a second in the garden-do read about things you like-assess their staying power.  Visit other people’s garden’s. Move things around. Go for broke.  Hang back, if something makes your pulse go quiet.    Most everyone has an imagination that works, if you give some time to letting it work. Read the tags, ask for help, take notes. Give it some time.   Be in charge of your garden; no one cares about it more than you do. 

In short, do something.  This season is in session.

I have become very interested in gardening in containers in the last 10 years; how enchanting to have the option of ignoring the demands of in ground cultivation. I like composing and planting them, even though I know my notion that I will have control over everything that happens later is an illusion. I choose the composition of the soil, the nutrients, the plants, the location that offers the best light.  I can water the pot as a whole, or I can water plants individually. I can introduce plants from South America to those from South Africa, and get them to thrive visually and physically, next to each other. Some containers I might plant with trees, or evergreens, or vegetables; others might have an aura of a roadside meadow. A container might have sculpture, mementoes, a banner-this in additon to the plants.  I might use a dead branch as a natural stake for a mandevillea. Some plants are old favorites; some are new to me.  Some pots I plant such that grown in, they assume a collective shape quite unlike their individual shapes. Some containers are breathtaking-empty.  Knowing when to stop, how to edit-this is an adult skill.

Relative to a plot of land, a container is small.  I am less afraid of a small failure than a big one-who isn’t? Thus I try things.  I am sure I have planted thousands of pots, and I am ready to plant more.  When I was young, I was sure that I would begin at point A, move to B, and shortly therafter, get to Z; voila-perfection. It never occurred to me to wonder  what I might do after that triumphant moment.   How embarrassing to recall having thought the world revolved around me. In fact,  I could learn new things about gardening every day-its a matter of making an effort to listen, and look-not a lack of things I know nothing about. It seems like new things appear to me at a faster rate that they did 30 years ago.  I believed that science existed perfect and entire-and therefore perfect understanding was within my reach. The more years I study, and add to my knowledge, the further I seem to be from a definition of the living world beyond its miracle.   Now I realize that perfection applies only to diamonds and moments. Not to my ideas, my knowledge, my efforts or my intentions, or my work.  I am relieved by this.

How grateful I am there is no best and perfect planting,  so I can go on making them.