Deep Roots: There’s No Such Thing As a Perfect Garden

Poor normal gardeners. They are assaulted from every direction. From magazines, bloggers, YouTubers, QVC, advertisers and TV garden shows from the Hamptons to the hinterlands, the constant barrage of perfect gardens is unrelenting. And it’s not made any better by tours of local gardens either. I know, because my yard was one of those gussied-up gardens on a recent tour. So much so it was unreal!

It was unreal because of the absurd amount of gut-wrenching stress and hard labor that went into it during the preceding months. And that was with help! Fellow gardening friends, in fact all expert gardeners, knew of the tour and generously came to my aid. For one wondrous day, it was almost like I had a staff.

I was like a wizard! On a cliff! A dramatic storm behind me. I would point to imperfections and—puff—they would blow up. As the smoke cleared, beautiful vignettes—beautiful little deadheaded and weeded vignettes—would appear. It was like a dream. It was intoxicating. But mostly it was unreal!

And I’m sure every normal gardener who came for the tour had absolutely no idea. To them, mine was just a picture-postcard garden, and another brick in the garden wall reminding them of their own tired, weedy, insect-ridden, deer-ravaged, poorly maintained, badly designed, rain-deprived little patches of scrub back home.

The small part of me that’s okay with taking credit for my friends’ hard work just wanted to saunter around, all aloof and stuff. But nope. Karma made sure I spent half the time helping people park their cars, and then I got cramps, and, well, stuff happens. Having now had time to ponder, I realize that everyone should know that a month before that tour my garden was a tired, weedy, insect-ridden, deer-ravaged… And a month past the tour, it was again.

Sure, I suppose there’s a place for lofty ideals someplace somewhere. Maybe they help some people achieve some things. But regular gardeners should keep perspective. Those dreamy gardens on TV whose owners waltz from bloom to bloom while drunk on prosecco, they ain’t real.

What is? Well, first, all your neighbors’ gardens that are way worse than yours. So, yay! Start there. And this is real too: Your garden is yours. And your standards should be the ones you establish. And those standards should be actually achievable. Achievable based on the resources you have and can spare for your own piece of ground—little things like blood, sweat and tears; brainpower; manpower; time; money.

And try not to think of your garden as a place to perfect but as a maker of moments, because that’s what gardens do best. They capture vignettes of nature in time, like when the light lands just right on an autumn leaf, or when a hummingbird buzzes down and looks you over, or when your granddaughter picks her first flower. Things like that are magical—and very real.

Illustration by Tom Beuerlein

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