I HAVE been interested in the concept of gardening for quite a while. Like any language, a garden develops in time and space. Not many write/talk about this. A while ago I tried to work on the idea but later lost interest in the subject.
There are 2 or 3 kinds of gardeners, including those gardening for hire in the design/maintenance departments. From me stance, there is an abysmal separation between gardeners stuck into hedges/lawn/manicured/high maintenance gardens with only ornamental/aesthetics/interests and....
The edible gardening school, these seem only interested in sustainable agriculture, organic this or that and that is the end of it. Screw aesthetics.
The third group is capable of taking the best from each school, without any complications. One can design, plant an edible garden with some aesthetics to show without any extra sweat. Digging a hole to place a plant always require the same effort and similar tools. Only the type of soil or concrete is different.
That been written, there are 2 or 3 considerations as to what makes a conscious gardener. The urban/rural/suburbia context, proximity to the ocean, altitude, humidity, drought/wet seasons, surrounding flora and fauna.
Most people with a garden or plants at random at home do not worry about the waste of irrigation or pollution with fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides since the lush vegetation is what matters.
When I mean most people, please keep in mind golf courses. Who cares about the environmental destruction lawn maintenance requirements have created and will create? There is nothing more sterile than lawns!
Never mind the gas/oil/propane/diesel/electricity wasted in them lawns. Blowers, trimmers and lawnmowers. You will be forgiven ONLY if you used a push mower, goats, cows or horses to keep it neat.
I used to have an intense dislike for people disconnected from their surroundings, in particular nature. I thought it was a matter of lacking any
sensibility, but perhaps it is more complicated. People cruel to animals and children have the same disease.
But it could be a matter of preferences and tendencies like those shown toward science, math, philosophy, theology and religion. Liking one, makes the second or third irrelevant to one's life.
I wonder what the world everywhere would be like if those fanatics blowing each other in pieces for religion, instead, were planting at least something to drink as in juices or eating as lettuce or tomatoes, favorites of many bloggers.
If bible freaks instead of knocking at your door and harassing people with their preach were planting and swapping their produce among themselves and those they wish to recruit, instead all the silly worry about the after life, while the earth is totally destroyed.
Horticulture alone will not help. People have to stop propagating like rabbits, something religion tends to promote, no matter how many starve to death as a consequence. Too often, one can watch the news with famines in Africa or elsewhere as if there is nothing anyjuan could do to stop it, eliminate it or reduce it significantly.
Now just the tittle is left. Contemplation is fine, I have learned from many blogs in which pretty manicured gardens are shared with admiration. They are mostly in USA, France, England, Italy or Spain, but rarely anywhere else.
These beauties are never questioned in terms of cost of maintenance in money, time, effort, how they improve or destroy the habitats for endemic/native flora and fauna.
That is why I put myself into the praxis bag, understanding that not every one can plant, diagnose what is wrong with any plant, prune and trim without making noise or pollution.
In brief, some contemplation with lots of praxis would help to improve our existence in the little time/space we live and considering other creatures making that existence possible, pollinators for instance, instead of the opposite, its destruction in every imaginable way.
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