Spring 2

I learned yesterday that our long-time "mow, blow, and go" gardener, Tiburcio Alamillo, is still coming by the house to care for the front yard on Saturday mornings. 

What a beautiful gesture. Trudging over the blackened patch of ash, glass, and plaster that used to be the beautiful fescue grass lawn he had recently installed, he trims and prunes, waters and weeds our two small bits of garden with the same care and attention he gave every week we lived there. 

I wonder what he thinks, as he cares for the roses, pentas, and Brazilian skyflower now appreciated only by the butterflies and passersby. Gardens, after all, are artificial constructs of nature, careful arrangements of the wild into the tame. Though philosophers  have argued the esthetics of gardening at least since the late 17th century, no matter where you fall on the arranged vs. wild-seeming axis, it is indisputable that, like tanks at the Aquarium, no garden exists in nature. In our case, it is merely a floral decoration before a now indecorously charred wooden box.

Perhaps, though, as one acculturated to the careful tending of the land, he knows instinctively that what lives demands attention, and that our future is built on the patient ministrations of today. 

Clip and shear. Fertilize and hydrate. Process over product. Structure follows strategy. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single snip.