Gardening our inherited property is an ongoing process of discovery and revelation.

My Bible has Genesis’ second sentence saying that the Earth was a formless void. Faced with a formless void, what is one to do? The possibilities would be endless. I would be reluctant to tangle with a formless void. Left alone, it would be fine, but once I tried to improve upon it, I’d soon be in way over my head.

But after looking at a formless void long enough, one might gain a vision.

If you have a bonsai tree, you know that you don’t rush into a project like that. What exactly is one to do with a bonsai tree? How are you going to trim it, and train it? Once you prune away a branch, the branch is gone, and all the options one would have had with it are gone. First, one contemplates the entirety of the tree, and all its parts. One figures out the role each piece plays in the entirety, then, knowing exactly what one is doing, acts with certainty.

The yard we have was not a formless void when we moved in, but it might as well have been. The only unchangeable thing about it is the property line, but within that, our freedom and creativity have enormous leeway. We could cut down all the trees, bulldoze the raised beds, and dig up the lawn.

Instead, we decide we like the trees, and the raised beds, and all the abundance of stuff growing without our assistance.

Flowers grow, but in such abundance, they take over large sections of the yard. The flowers die, and nothing is left but a sticky type of plant spreading billions of seeds. That stuff is pulled up, and another plant just like it takes over, so, in turn, it is pulled up. Big plants with lots of flowers brighten the garden, but the flowers die, and nothing is left but an unattractive plant that apparently does nothing but take up space.

I’m reluctant to remove this stuff, because there’s so much of it, and at least it’s something in the garden, and what would remain if I removed it? Maybe a desolate patch of brown would be all that’s left. But pulling up all that stuff, one finds other plants that have been lurking and struggling underneath. The Summer garden has been waiting for the Spring garden to get out of its way.

Winter has its flowers that must make way for the flowers of Spring, and those must be removed for the flowers of Summer. Then the tomatoes and other vegetables of Summer can linger as long as they want into Autumn. When those are done, one is left with the empty spaces that had been so quickly and completely filled by the flowers of Winter.

Maybe instead of waiting for that, one can fill those spaces with blueberries, raspberries, huckleberries, and salmonberries, maybe some nice little trees, and not have so much work to do in coming years merely to accommodate plants one sees everywhere when one instead can fulfill a vision of a garden full of the types of special plants one has realized would be a perfect fit for the yard.

One can have not just a formless void, but one’s very own colorful, fragrant, nutritious, photogenic, doted-upon formless void!