garden mayhem

Because I’m a plant collector, my garden is always on the brink of mayhem. I’m certain that some would say that rather than being on the edge, I’ve dived in, head first, with abandon. But to my eye, the garden teeters on the edge, sometimes falling over that edge, and then I gasp, then sigh, and then go at the garden with pruners, a shovel and bags and bags of wreckage. There is a certain pleasure in a mayhem garden however. There is a looseness that suggests a relaxed attitude about life. There is the suggestion that life is embraced whole-heartedly, each plant species acknowledged and loved. It is also a rather nice contrast to the somewhat spare interior of my house.

But recently I’ve come to realize what a precarious balance this kind of garden is. In a more formal garden, or one that has the spare plant palette that landscape architects typically design, there is also a precarious balance. A tree falls, something dies, weeds grow and the design is ruined. But in these gardens, the problem is more easily remedied. It is mostly a matter of keeping any self-sown plants weeded out, pruning back plants that have grown beyond their allotted space, replacing plants that have died. Decisions don’t need to be made. Perhaps this is why gardens are designed in this manner.

What has shoved into my consciousness that my garden is on the edge of mayhem is that I’m having my house re-stuccoed. While this doesn’t seem like a big deal, it is. It has required me to move everything away from the side of the house: pots of plants, plants in the ground that are too near the house. I dug up many plants and put them into pots. These potted plants were piled together into one of the few open spaces in the yard. When the stuccoers came, they trampled many plants, especially the cacti who ended up looking like an oreo cookie that’s been hit by a rolling pin. Branches were broken. The lavender hedge now has a shattered hole left where an errant boot had landed (several times it appears, and by a particularly beefy worker).

Worker Damage

To compile the madness, it is now spring, when the plants put out their big push to grow and reproduce before the heat of summer. Plants have grown beyond their expected size due to the higher than normal amounts of winter moisture. Seeds have sprouted in unprecedented numbers, particularly the Penstemons (primarily P. palmeri, P. clutei, and P. barbatus, unfortunately not P. linarioides, which I love).

Compounding this madness is that many of my plants are native plants, which means that they are unrefined forms from seeds. The plants therefore, show a degree of variation not only between plants, but within the plants themselves. Plants that have been long cultivated or hybridized tend to have regular form – the better to pot and market, and more impressive in the garden if you are looking for that Disneyland bedding look (ICK!) – think bedding marigolds and petunias. My plants such as the Penstemon can have flowering stalks of various heights, pointing in various directions, not like the bedding snapdragons you see at Lowe’s.


This snapdragon self sowed from somewhere last fall. I couldn't bear to pull it out. It's a good example of "refinement" even though it is self sown, this plant is more compact, regular in form, and floriferous than wild plants. I'm not saying it's not *pretty*.

In addition to this, I had also expected a large amount of winter kill due to the particularly cold and snowing winter we had, which caused the rotting of a number of plants, but many of these plants have unexpectedly returned with passion. I say unexpectedly, because of course, I ordered a large number of plants by mail, and these have just arrived.

So the garden has gone from being on the edge, to square in the middle of mayhem. I tried to make sense of the madness today, and learned a few things. First of all, there is much to be said about “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames” (Joan Nassauer). Things look much better with a clearly demarcated edge to the paths and the patio. When the patio was full of potted plants of various plastic sizes, the place really looked a sty.

Another thing is spacing. If I had spaced the plants like I should have (e.g. had I believed that the P. pseudospectabilis and the P. barbatus really do get to 4 feet tall) things would be much more reasonable. Size of plants is essential. If my Quercus turbinella were another 5 feet taller, they would make a clearly demarcated tree level, and the 4 foot P. pseudospectabilis would have its own level, instead of a hodgepodge. I could have planted P. clutei instead (and utilized the hundreds of seedlings that cropped up this year) but for some reason I was driven to have the larger plant. I can place the blame of the fernbush on Judith, since her book says they get to 3-5 feet (more like 10-12 feet wide in reality – but I generally otherwise treat her book like the bible). They will have to be removed.

It is also clear that it is essential to see a bit of order to the garden. Mayhem doesn’t look “natural” (nature would never put these plants together), it just looks messy. Grouping plants into drifts of single species helps. Diane Cena also reminded me, “You don’t have to put plants on every square inch of ground” (or something like that, in what was a more diplomatic way). Point taken. Sometimes you need a breather. I still haven’t learned that lesson.

It also helps to put some sculpture in. What I mean is that when the plants are a wild jumble, some hard lined object such as an ornamental pot (NOT filled with plants), puts some civilization into the jungle. I provides a place for the eye to rest, and starts to make order out of the disorder.


Before: mayhem


After: still mayhem, but it seems a bit less.


I think I’m coming to terms with my mayhem garden. On a good day, I’d say it might even look like a combination of one of Lauren Springer’s gardens and an Oehme & Van Sweden garden. Just the look I was striving for.