I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Dear Friend and Gardener. I like books of letters. This combined with garden lore, plant discussions, and a round social life is good read. It makes you realize that these great gardens are maintained by real people not just a corporation that hires bodies to do their work.
One passage that made me think was written by Beth on Friday 18 October Too often one's mind is cluttered with problems, eyes on the ground, fussing about a few gaps, or messy bits of planting. ... I came to realize how seldom I take in the enveloping framework of the garden, partly becasue there is quite a lot to see, partly because I may look but do not give myself time to absorb what is happening.
I often don't take time to look around and see what is going on in the garden since I am so busy doing what I feel needs to be accomplished. This makes me think I need to take more time to stop and absorb what I have created and see just what I need to accomplish. If you don't take time to just be in your garden you won't know how it is truly faring. You have to take time to see if all is going the way you want it to. But not only that if you don't just relax and enjoy your garden why have it? A garden should be enjoyed by all even its creator.
In a passage Beth wrote Thursday 12 December ...good gardens need inspired leadership, whith concern for everything involved, both the plants and the people who care for them. She was worried about how her garden and business would be taken care of after she died or was unable to take care of it any more. I think we all have that question in the back of our minds. I have read blogs about some of you that have left behind a beloved garden when you had to move. Who will care for it?? Is all this work for nothing? Why do we drive ourselves to distraction for our lovely spaces when we know that hardly anyone else would want to take care of it as we do.??
We all care so deeply about the garden. I know I would hope that someone would take my garden and keep it going. Oh it wouldn't have to be as it is. I would like to think I would inspire someone to continue to garden on our little plot. As Bethsays on Wednesday 15 January ...gardens themselves need to change, to go forward, to evolve. They cannot be encapsulated in time like a fly in amber.
I think this we all realize. Just think about how your tastes in gardens have changed over the years if you have gardened very long. I know mine have changed a lot. Heck my taste in plants change from year to year sometimes.
Not only are Christopher and Beth gardeners they are lovers of nature. They often speak of the birds and critters that inhabit their gardens. How could anyone not enjoy nature and be a gardener I wonder?
I could pick several more morsels out of this book. It is a good one. I have several passages underlined and ears turned down on several pages. Not only does the garden change but I change from year to year and this book will offer little gems of garden thoughts that I mull over and take time to relishsometime in the future.
