Organic gardening

Recently, I stayed with friends who live in an inner western suburb of Sydney. Majestic paperbarks line some of the streets and others are planted with hardy Callistemons. The gardens are small and are like snapshots of life at some historical moment to display a particular horticultural trend, the peculiar fancies of assorted migrant influxes or just a plain hodge podge of the above. 

The original gardens are simply about flowers, planted with frangipani, bougainvillea, azaleas, jacaranda, Japanese bamboo and roses. Others are deemed for the useful, not the ornamental, and silver beet and curly leafed parsley jostle for space. There are minimalist yards featuring squares of cement painted green, white balustrades and concrete lions. The naturalist ones, overgrown with masses of Australian natives harking back to the 70s. Some bring a smile, where a hopeful resident has poked a wee stick of something in a neglected corner. Will it or won’t it?

Gardening, in the traditional sense, is organic. It predates the chemical free. Older urban areas are exemplars of the organic approach, with seemingly random selections of plants or style bundled together.  Organic gardening is the upside-downside to landscaping, which is planned, shaped and directed by a higher authority. It is about enjoying plants and the journey that begins with hands in the soil. Organic gardening is what happens, or what evolves, as we become the next guardian of the space we occupy, the serendipitous nurturer of our patch on Earth.

TC