In the Beginning

In the Beginning, there were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, according to the Christian, Jewish and Islamic legends (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve).  Jannah, the Islamic word for "paradise," comes from the Arabic word symbolizing "garden" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jannah).  In Chinese literature, 世外桃源 ("peach source outside of this world") conveys a concept of utopia beyond a troubled world where peach blossoms surround a hidden spring, and the land is safe, clean, beautiful and full of happiness.


As I sit in my sunlit dining room, inhaling the scent of Arabic jasmine and beginning my first blog about gardens, I contemplate the meaning of the word "garden" and what it means to me.  Here are few words that immediately come to mind when I think of my garden:

trees

flowers

foliage

fruits
vegetables

birds

butterflies

beauty
scents

nature

man-made

labor

pleasure
sanctuary

Arabian jasmine (Jasminum sambac) is blooming profusely in my dining room right now, scenting the entire room.  This is a treasured plant in many cultures, used to make perfume and flavor tea leaves, appearing in songs, literature and female names.  Once I was even served a whole plate of jasmine buds while dining in China.

A garden is a man-made object, or rather, a project, created with the collaboration of Nature. It is transient, mutable, capricious and impermanent.  It is a thing of beauty yet laden with so much ugliness (think of your roses being mobbed by inch worms and aphids, or all the weeds that threaten to take over your lawn).  It is a labor-intensive project, requiring hours of fastidious and often-time backbreaking work.  And like Lucy in the chocolate factory, the work is non-stop and endless so the moment the gardener slacks off, Nature the task-maker piles on more and more of work therefore he/she will end up either a slave to his/her garden until the day he/she expires or wanting to seek a divorce from it, leaving it abandoned to Nature.


Thank goodness there is snowy winter where I live in New England.

No gardening going on all winter...except caring for the house plants!

And yet we gardeners keep going at it, constantly trying to create the most beautiful and productive gardens we are capable of making.  Why?  Pleasure is the ultimate outcome.  One can call it the by-product of this exercise, next to the thriving rose bushes and sweet plums hanging off trees.  


I have a love-hate relationship with my garden.  Like a truly obsessive-compulsive person, I strive to achieve perfection every spring in my garden.  It is not until all the countless inch worms, born of the winter moths, and the aphids have hatched in May, before I realize that perfection is a dream.  Lily beetles eat holes in my "Shocking" Orienpet lilies despite my efforts in catching and crushing them.  Rabbits and squirrels attack my seedlings and tulip bulbs. Then heat strikes New England in the beginning of June, and all sorts of weeds take over every free spot not occupied (or even occupied) by my plants. By this point, no amount of hand-weeding will ever clear the tenacious soldiers of Nature from my flower patches.  I have long come to the realization that there is better living through chemistry and for those of us who refuse to follow that motto (I stick to organic garden with the exception of fertilizers), imperfection is part of life.  And so no, I do not have a perfect garden, though I try, and try.


To escape from being a slave to my garden, I travel, mostly with my family.  Everywhere I go, I can't help but noticing the gardens in my surrounding.  I scrutinized the garden design, the plant collections, the horticultural skills of the gardeners, the architectural details of attached buildings and the history associated with each garden I had the chance of visiting.  I took photos for myself, gathering ideas of what plants to grow in my garden (if I ever win my fight against the weeds and take over a suitable plot).  After a while, I have a huge collection of garden photos.  Here are a few:

Naumkeag in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. A beautiful garden in the Berkshires.

Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris.

Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.

A corner of Humble Administer's Garden (拙政園) in Suzhou, China.

Given the chance, I would like to share the beauty of these gardens with anyone who appreciates them.  After all, the pleasure of discovery is multiplied through sharing.