Accepting Failure
This month I spent more time reading about gardening and plants than I did in the garden. Courtney Henslee writes beautiful passages on her sub-stack titled The Brazen Bee, and recently published “A Sympathy Letter for Gardening Failures: Please don’t stop trying.”
The cucumbers, gourds, squashes, okra, peas, sweet peas (largely), and most beans were considered failures for me this year. Each year particular weather systems, backyard animals, shading and microclimates, soil conditions, or my workload/travel schedule/level of garden neglect affect the garden in varying ways. I am almost joyfully surprised at the “survivors” from last year – the sage, volunteer sunflowers, wide-spreading cilantro, mint, calendula, and lavender which pop up again and again. Violas are starting to make an annual comeback on their own in the beds I left outside and did not disturb them (usually I pack all the soil away, but will cease this practice as it may disturb the seeds that the plants have dropped).
Henslee writes a love letter to gardening failures. “We have lost thousands of years of generational knowledge! Gardening knowledge used to be passed down with zero generational interruptions…Be willing to fail. When you do fail, remember that it took trillions of failures to get to where we are. Be willing to switch to different plants or be willing just to try again and do it differently. Gardening is truly a great lesson in how to deal with life. You may find you are skilled, but only at one specific plant or herb. You may find that you have 3 favorites and the rest are just experimental. You may fall in love with your experiments and set aside your previous favorites. Gardening is about taking chances.”
I also read a book titled Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jennifer Lee, which was incredibly moving. It made me think of how gardening is a tool of memory, and also one of oppression (invasive, non-native, and other terms mimic those used within repressive immigration spaces). I purchased a bunch of plants this month as the garden started its decline into late-summer drabness, and included a heather plat, which evoked recollections of the moors in Leeds when I visited for a friend’s wedding.
This shopping trip, which occurred before a family visit and was driven, in part, by the anxiety of said drabness, ended up being a great teacher in which plants can survive the heat of a Colorado July-August. Most impressive, and cheapest of all, are the small, draping petunias known as Calibrachoa, which have brightened up all of the hanging baskets that were fading.