From the garden;

 Here in the garden it’s always peaceful , thousands of organisms, insects ,bees, flies, bugs, plants, trees and me. I’m the only one not ‘working’ , not contributing to the general well being of this little patch of nature. Me being human it’s probably best that I interfere as little as possible, our track record is not good and it hardly ever ends well for nature when we inflict our ‘idea of how it should be’. Humans - not the best curators of the planet, you wouldn’t trust them with your Rose Garden let alone with the rain forest. 

Every so often I am compelled - by my fear of what neighbors, family and friends might think about the ‘state of the garden’ - to interfere. Mow the lawn, cut back bushes,trees and remove exaggerated weed patches, but I like to keep my ‘meddling’ to a minimum. At the back of the garden there’s a specially designed ( :-)  ) ‘wild area’ that I leave totally alone. A small space, left to weeds, wild flowers and all the creepy crawlies that live it up there. Bees love it, butterflies do as well, in fact they love this ’wild patch’ more than the more sophisticated carefully laid out flower beds of sterile garden centre ‘blooms of the year’. (must admit I do love Garden Centers).

My style of gardening I call the Darwinist approach, plant it - feed it and if doesn’t fit in it will die. Let nature steer the garden to what it should be in this climate, this temperature this region. Looking around in my couple of square meters of paradise always makes me ask the question ‘why do we make such a differential between ‘weeds’ and plants? What’s the difference? There are weeds that bring the most beautiful flowers, while some plants fail miserably, that’s why I like to keep the balance right. I try not to let one side of the argument become the ‘norm’ -both sides get equal ‘bragging rights’ on my patch. In my garden I put my chair firmly on the middle ground- and I try not to take sides.