Rescue Me, Oh Mud, Oh Earth
This has been a hard, hard week. But I got myself out into the backyard today with my copy of Dave Goulson’s book The Garden Jungle - or Gardening to Save the Planet. I had my cup of decaf coffee and a folding chair which I tucked in out of the rain, between the planters and the birdfeeders. I spent several minutes just gazing out at my wonderful, soggy, dilapidated garden and feeling so relieved at escaping from the various stresses indoors. I must have been thinking a lot but I have no idea what I was thinking about. Probably, at first, the things that were chewing away at me when I was indoors. But I do recall beginning to distinguish between the plants I saw before me, to remember: these are the friends that I brought from home. The sword fern, the epimedium, these clematises and bellflowers, the giant bleeding heart, and of course, my Iolanthe magnolia.
I moved here four years ago from a place I’d been for thirty years, a beloved old building set to be torn down. It was really important to me to bring what I could of my plants. One, the magnolia, got some deep root pruning the year before I moved, to encourage it to grow roots closer to the surface in order to survive the transition. The move itself was difficult. And it turns out the land my new abode sits on was a dumpsite previously, and since then many hedge plants and high maple trees have penetrated that hard, compacted earth with their dense net of roots and rootlets. It took me weeks to dig a hole big enough for the little tree, but I got very good at cutting through roots, and I retrieved many interesting items, from rocks and broken glass and crockery to a shrivelled washing machine ringer. So, as gardening goes, it was hard, especially with my screwed up back and knees, but from an archaeological point of view it was fascinating. Finally, digging up that tree might have been the finish of me if one of my neighbours hadn’t come out to lend a hand. And then the wild ride here in the back of my friend’s pickup. Poor little Iolanthe!
I suppose that is where my thoughts began to dwell. On the plants I’d rescued from demolition at my old home to those I have introduced since moving here – those that remain and those that couldn’t adapt to conditions in my tiny yard. The garden bed I am building up from below rather than digging down into, to avoid repeating that fight with the roots. And, of course, there was my roving inspection from a distance: who is coming up from the soil, who has survived the winter, what needs replacing and shoring up.
After a while, I opened my book and began to read about peat bogs and some of the fascinating creatures that live in them, the properties of the bogs themselves and their importance not only to the plants and animals that make up their biosphere, but their role in preventing flooding and storing carbon. Having established the wonder and importance of bogs, Goulson discusses the conditions and health of soils in various circumstances, like farm fields versus allotments versus suburban and urban gardens. He outlines the efforts and lack thereof of horticultural societies and nurseries and gardeners to stop using peat. 95% of UK raised bogs are already gone; the majority of compost continues to be made of nearly 50% peat.
You would think that this would be totally depressing, and I might have done better to stick with my novel. But there’s something about the grace with which he speaks of the land, the personal relationship he has with the butterflies and his compost heap and the springtails and worms in his garden that make his writing uplifting despite all the worries outlined in such depth. Reading him helped me feel more grounded in and related to my own little patch, helped me think of ways to get around the impact of the bans in my building on having open water outside and establishing compost, and so on.
When I was finished with my reading I moved into the garden itself and began to see what was needed and do some work. It felt so good.
There is nothing like concentrating on the leaves and shoots, the worms underneath old bricks, on the soil itself and its black nature and moist beauty. Nothing like deciding where this sort of leaves can go to do the most good and where these ones need to be – figuring out how to get the most out of my limited freedom here. My aim with my little garden is to make it as attractive as possible to all manner of invertebrates, and yes that does include scale insects, beloved of ants, even though my first instinct is to get them off “my” plant. The healthier I can make the soil, the more little creatures I attract, the stronger the plants are – able to carry a greater load of scale bugs, for instance, the more that bigger creatures will come to eat the little ones, and the more joy I feel when I am sitting out there with my coffee and my book in this small, imperfect sanctuary that helps so much to ease the pain of living in this world.
When I was reading I heard the chip and thrum of a hummingbird and I looked up from my book. A male Anna’s was checking me out. He went to the left, he went to the centre, he went to the right, hanging in the air maybe two feet ahead of me. His brilliant iridescent neck feathers glittered as he moved from side to side. When he was satisfied, he zipped away. All the while in the garden today, I was hearing chickadees and sparrows and glancing up to watch the brave ones as they flew to their feeders, snatching a sunflower seed or stabbing at the suet, flying away in swift retreat.
There is something about being surrounded by plants and birds and air and mud that is like being swaddled in lace. There is a warmth even on a cool day, a gentleness – perhaps arising from the innate gentling of stopping and hearing and seeing more fully than usual. The worst sorrows can be kneaded softly by the garden world.
So, thank you for this much-needed intervention, oh mud, oh earth. Thank you for letting me reignite my love for you, my involvement with you, my caring for you, and feel again the balm of you against my soul.
I return indoors buttressed for whatever work I need to do in this more human world.
Images: Photo of leaves by Kristian Seedorff on Unsplash. Photo of muddy hands by Chris Yang on Unsplash.
