I swear my family and friends are going to hold an intervention if I say one more time "I saw on the bbc garden show that..." *LOL* But I truly do learn so much from those passionate gardeners, the Brits. Lately, I've been watching a series called "Lost Gardens." Very informative. Today I watched the restoration of an 1880 Victorian "pleasure garden" and the insights not only into Victorian gardening, but the whole Victorian ethos was very informative. The narrator (my crush, Monty Don), pointed out that far from being the dour and repressed people we tend to think when we hear the word "victorian" these were people with a great exuberance for life...their gardens reflect that...packed to the gunwales with the newest, most wildly colored plants from all over the world. They threw themselves into their gardens with great gusto...they looked at the hard work of gardening as something to be embraced and mastered, as a way to be better people, both physically and morally. They developed tools and techniques that were truly ingenious...if a little bizarre by today's standards. I love looking at that era's hand tools...a tool for every job, no matter how small or finicky.
I think I can learn to be a better gardener and a better person by following the lead of those old long dead victorian brits.... I need to be less timid about getting out there and doing things...so what if the concrete doesn't set? the retaining wall slides, the pond leaks? it's the doing that's important! Besides, challenge and adversity build that mainstay of the Victorian moral code: CHARACTER. And I think that's something we all could use a bit more of! Pip pip, cheerio. What what. I say!
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| Winter woes by gardengus | Dec 20, 2016 7:27 AM | 3 |
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