I want to learn better how to visit someone else’s garden. The more I understand what it means for me to garden, what an active / interactive event it is, the more I understand how to be engaged with a garden not my own. I see that I am entering into an intimate space where the gardener and plants live together. The life of one is not separate from the other.
As a visitor, I am invited to participate in that intriguing dance of gardener and plants. I can choose to stand aside and observe or I can join in the exuberance of the dance. For me, this is like gardening of the mind. Not that gardening is a rational activity, but my mind must be open, I must be aware of what is happening if I am going to join in the dance.
Garden is not an outcome, it is an experience and an activity. A garden is not a trophy case of collected plants on display. It is an interaction between the plants, the gardener and the visitor. It is an event, and I am careful not to close my mind to that reality.
The plants are all an expression of the energy of the sun, the substance of the rain and air, the presence of birds, the work of life in the soil, the vitality of last season’s compost, the hand of the gardener. The temporary nature of the event is so fleeting, it is easy to miss its many features. All are contained in the exuberance and impulse of the plants, an expression of the web of inter-being in a way I can experience it.
As a visitor, I have the opportunity to enter into the joy of being a plant. The display of that joy is unmistakable. Even a casual visitor easily gets caught up in the thrill of plantness. The exuberance of the plant display of voluptuous sexuality can be totally engaging. Except for plants like hosts, most plants have been selected for their ability to display their sexuality with bold enthusiasm. I reach deeper into this display and become engaged with the plant eroticism, the urgent impulse of being alive in all the plants.
I am aware that any garden I visit is alive in ways I can only barely comprehend. It is an experience I offer to anyone curious enough to visit my garden. A visit to my garden is a shared experience, full of surprises, that leaves neither the visitor nor the garden quite the same.