Rashly, I feel I may have allowed myself to write something, somewhere in a recent post, about accountability and so, in a spirit of full disclosure and the stated warts-and-all protestations of this publication, I’ve a confession to make. There’s still a bloody Christmas tree outside the kitchen window. I’ve a podcast episode to write this morning, but in a break from that, I’m fully intending to deal with the thing, and there’ll be no further Substacking till the job’s done. And so, if you’re reading this, you’ve either broken into my house and had a quick shifty at my laptop or, finally, the courtyard is clear.
If a species is going to survive, it has to be highly adaptable to endure the whims of climate, cosmos and, er, customers like us humans, with all the havoc we wreak upon the planet. At an individual level, there needs to be an ability to navigate the sub-optimal and emerge as close to unscathed as makes no difference. Trees are very good at this – you’ll have seen those photographs of bicycles, railings and even the odd postbox that have been absorbed into the trunk of a growing tree. Left alone and given time, a tree will overcome.
I myself have been blessed with an uncanny ability to normalise the presence of a carbuncle. I’m reliably informed it’s not the most endearing of my traits; possibly, it’s a survival mechanism brought about from having to see my own face staring back at me from the bathroom mirror every morning, but however it’s come about, it allows me to register the presence of something – let’s say, not entirely harmonious with its surroundings, concede that Something Must Be Done, and then boot that acknowledgement so far forwards into the never never that the object itself recedes with Newtonian reciprocity almost immediately from my attention (there are exceptions; a messy kitchen, for example, will make me come over all unnecessary).
In the garden, while this is entirely in keeping with my think like a plant mantra, it’s not the most winning of behaviours when it comes to aesthetic considerations: Exhibit A, the Christmas tree outside the kitchen window; Exhibit B, the (thankfully dark grey) tarpaulin thrown over the roof of Shed No. 3 until I get around to refelting it. There’s probably half an alphabet of exhibits from which I will distract myself with wonderful plants, but even plants can take upon themselves a carbuncular role if, for whatever reason, they’re not fitting in with the general vibe. The niggle we feel when presented with some aspect of the garden is a feeling to embrace, even to seek out, since it can be immensely instructive in identifying what’s not quite right about the objects (plants, furniture, buildings, hardscaping) within a space. In someone else’s garden this often comes down to a matter of taste, though whatever the dominant aesthetic, whether or not it happens to be to our own liking, there’s still a difference between contrasting elements that bring a dynamic energy to the ensemble, and something that sticks out like a sore thumb. In your own garden you get to say what stays and what goes, but a danger we can all fall into is a gradual acceptance of something that really needs dealing with – which could involve anything from a sympathetic prune and feed to being hoiked out and carted off to the compost heap – simply because we don’t have the resources to deal with it immediately.
I’ve realised that it’s not a problem I have in the gardens in which I work, where I’m paid to see what’s not pulling its weight and to come up with solutions or alternatives. So why should it be any different at home? There are myriad reasons why any of us will put up with a situation we find to be less than ideal, but in our own gardens we usually have sufficient agency to do something about it, providing we don’t allow ourselves to become inured to the sub-optimal through following a path that might begin with overwhelm, before travelling through apathy and ending up somewhere in the vicinity of anaesthesia. I know that when I exit the kitchen door and look upon the garden as if it belongs to a client, I see the full list of what’s to be done with stark clarity.
It’s not something I want to do every day; I like the hint of nature moving in to reclaim the space. But this isn’t wilderness – not yet – and if I’m going to maintain the feeling of holding the ground here at a tipping point rather than letting the whole lot plunge over the edge, I need periodically to check in with my client-self, to see what I might have been allowing myself to unsee, and decide whether or not that’s something that really needs sorting out.
There’s now half a Christmas tree outside the kitchen window, and a wheelbarrow full of clippings. So, job not quite done, but we’re calling that progress.
Can I take this as a metaphor and apply it other parts of my life, sweet friend?🌱