Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Good Borders Make Good Gardens

Paraphrasing Robert Frost's "Good fences make good neighbors" quote seemed appropriate for today's work in the garden. Greg had made a strong line around the beds with the edger this weekend, so I've been using that line to pull out the extra grass and neaten the border edges.

It's funny, but it's taken me almost all of my life to recognize the importance of neat edges in a garden. We all have our points of rebellion, and for some reason one of mine revolves around keeping things neat. In my wise old age, though, I've come to realize that if I keep the edges neat, the beds and lawn can be downright weedy and/or overgrown and the garden will still look good...especially to the untrained eye.

Speaking of weedy and overgrown, another basic garden chore that I rebelled against for years was weeding. Justifying my reluctance to pull out unwanted plants under the umbrella of "biodiversity is good for any biological system," I kept wondering why my garden plants always looked so stunted and my vegetables produced so poorly. Call me stubborn. Call me stupid. I have learned better, though! It just took me longer than most.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought you were about to do some kind of immigration rant when you started that. ;-)

Gaia Gardener: said...

Well, actually I guess that would be an appropriate analogy - although Frost's original quote is even better in that instance.