Serendipity can be found in numerous
places; in fact, it's all around us. What exactly is serendipity,
and what does it have to do with gardening? Serendipity is making
unexpected discoveries by chance, and in the garden, this happens
all the time. There are new things to be seen or uncovered everyday,
especially in the garden.
Planning a garden is fun. Putting
everything in its designated place, exactly how and where you want
it to be. However, Mother Nature sometimes has a way of rearranging
your garden and placing things how and where she wants it instead.
This is serendipitous gardening. Look closely and you will find
it. Take a stroll through the garden and you're sure to find a few
welcome newcomers, or in some cases, not so welcome. Within your
garden lies an abundance of surprises just waiting to be discovered.
Perhaps it's in the form of a new plant; one that you never knew
was there.
Maybe you planted your garden with
a specific color theme in mind. Then you go out one day to discover,
by accident, another plant is happily growing within your carefully
color-coordinated garden. Your patriotic red, white, and blue garden
now has a touch of pink added to the mix. You stare at the lovely
new flower, the one you did not plant here, and are left in awe
of its beauty. Apparently, nature feels this plant will look better
here and will be better appreciated. This is serendipitous gardening.
Maybe you're busy designing a beautiful
woodland garden, lush with wildflowers, hostas, and azaleas. Your
goal is to create a well-designed path for visitors. With the careful
placement of plants, you design a specific and perfect pathway for
morning strolls through the garden. However, as the days go by,
you begin to notice that some of your plants seem unhappy with their
new locations; in fact, some have even taken on the process of finding
another suitable place, suggesting that your path take on a new
life, a different direction that leads another way. Your careful
design, your planning, and your specific direction has all been
changed by nature. This is serendipitous gardening. This is how
gardening was intended, full of surprises.
Perhaps you have a small container
garden with new sprouts popping up. You haven't a clue what these
interesting looking plants are. You come to find out later that
the plants in question were from your neighbor's garden. Nature
has struck again. The seeds were carried by wind, finding your container
garden to be a suitable residence. This is serendipitous gardening.
Gardening by way of serendipity can
be an interesting alternative to traditional gardening. Rather than
going through the task of designing your garden to perfection, just
sit back and allow nature to do all the work for you. This is after
all what she does best, harmonizing the landscape by letting the
plants choose what type of soil they prefer and in what area they
would like to grow. Most of us are taught to take complete control
of our gardening environment, but sometimes nature understands,
better than we do, how to keep our gardens balanced. It's simply
a matter of having the right plant in the right microclimate at
the right time. We shouldn't try so hard to grow the perfect garden.
We should try letting go of the belief that only we know how and
what our gardens should be like. Allow nature to have its way instead.
When nature takes over the garden, it's full of pleasant surprises.
What could be better than that?- Nikki Phipps
