By Marlena Hirsch  

“ … above all, it teaches entire trust in nature.” -Alan Chadwick

Even though I have grown plants since I was a child, I write to empower a gardener or would-be gardener at any experience level. With the maze of information, do this/don’t do that, by the garden experts, I want to encourage helpful attitudes that any gardener can cultivate.

First: a garden is an extension of your needs and desires. Dare to dream. Plant a gardenia or a peony, depending on your climate. The stunning peony doesn’t need rich soil, according to a neighbor who has invested in hundreds. The bare roots do take years to establish themselves, and then you have it forever. The gardenia fragrance is unforgettable. Dare to plant fruit trees that might take years to bear fruit.

Second: A garden is a place of wonder. I plant a multitude of plants, and the garden here is a wonderment to me. If one peach tree is damaged by voles, the ones that sprouted from seed might not be. I keep planting more, especially for something as delicious as a peach. Apple seedlings need to be grafted, but I save any seedlings that might sprout. I have been paying attention to leaf shapes, texture, and color of green, so I can usually tell a garden plant seedling from a weed seedling.

Third: The garden speaks when we listen. Last year, tomatoes told of their stress by curling their leaves, yellowing lower leaves, and motley leaf coloring indicative of viruses. This happened after a few days of temperatures around 100 degrees. Pole beans and squash also looked stressed by this heat with dull yellowing leaves. I planned to give them shade this year, but we have not had such hot weather. I also have the automatic timer on the drip lines set for 40 minutes instead of 30 minutes like last year. I think the extra water helps this year.

This year, I watched the tomatoes for leaf curl and yellowing lower leaves. At the first signs of this, I gave the tomatoes extra water. One hot afternoon, I sprayed this garden with water. I am glad that the smaller garden gets late afternoon shade from oak trees. Living shade also gives moisture as the trees breathe. Our oaks will shut down in the heat, but any moisture from their respiration is appreciated by the other plants.

The big garden has future living shade from young olive trees and an Australian blue pea tree, which are growing.

Outside of the fenced gardens, the landscaping plants give clues to their needs. These plants are natives here in Northern California, Australia, and the Mediterranean Climates. A black sage grew big and covered itself in flowers this spring. Then the lower leaves yellowed. I pruned it back to a third of itself in June. I don’t want dried-out plants during our fire season, and the black sage looks much happier. I am watching all of the plants to learn what they need. If I see stress of lower leaves yellowing, I might prune a shrub back. The native madrone drops its lower leaves in the hot weather to save moisture, so this plant does not need pruning. We can learn from watching the forest plants. Observe what they do to survive drought. Summer drought is an issue here, but you might live where extra moisture is an issue. With extra moisture, plants might be limited by not having enough sunlight. Then you observe how a fallen tree opens the canopy to make room for growth.

Plants will tell you. Observation is key. Good farmers observe. As a child, I remember driving with my father through his apple orchards at about 1 mph, as he observed the trees.

Just walking the garden daily reveals much. There is a Japanese saying that the footsteps of the farmer are the best fertilizer. I read the plants with yellow lower leaves as drought or heat-stressed. The plant will sacrifice lower leaves to grow the flowers that produce fruit and seeds. Seeds are the plant’s goal. Annual plants finish when their seeds are ripe. Other perennial plants may rest after seeds are produced. When I harvest flowers or trim plants back, they make more growth.

It is possible that plants have some universal knowledge. Certainly, their DNA codes their growth. There may be more that is yet not universally known. After studying the biome where a plant evolved, I let my plants give final approval on where I plant them. My intuition gives me that valuable information.

Plants communicate through fungal networks in the top layer of soil. This knowledge has been presented in books like “The Hidden Life of Trees” and “Entangled Life”. In cases of forests, some scientists think that fungal networks allow trees to share nutrients, water, and chemicals that tell of an insect attack. Then, neighboring trees make a chemical that discourages the insect. The thing that convinces me that fungal strands, mycorrhiza, can interconnect trees in a forest is an illustration I saw in a biology textbook. The artists drew the random or missing cell walls of fungi which is characteristic of them. I could see that the cell contents could diffuse easily without organized cell walls. I imagined how moisture could travel for miles to reach equilibrium, especially when you consider that a fungus can easily cover acres. There is an Armillaria ostoyae fungus in Oregon that is estimated to cover 2,200 to 2,400 acres. * I can imagine that fungal strands allow nutrients and moisture to be shared through a well-mulched garden.

There are scientists that support the idea of communication by unseen means. Rupert Sheldrake describes morphic fields as unseen collective knowledge that can be shared. He did experiments to understand how some dogs know when their owners are coming home, well before the car is near. A hunch may be more than it seems.

There are many limiting ideas in all endeavors that are being shown to be only part of the story. We want definite solutions, but the truth is found in the nuances. I sprayed the leaves on a hot day, yet this is discouraged for many reasons. That seems to me to be a limiting thought construct. On a hot day, I sprayed water in mid-afternoon to cool the plants and perhaps keep enough moisture in the garden air to prevent sun scorch. I think being your own authority makes for better gardening.

I plan my garden and keep records, yet this year, I barely looked at the records and plans. The garden had its own ideas, and I listened. I deviated from the plans because many hardy annuals volunteered on their own. I know that plants will come up when the conditions are best for them, so volunteer plants are healthier than plants that I may have transplanted from seedling to a bigger pot and then to the open ground. That root disturbance doesn’t happen to a plant that volunteers. The volunteer agrostemma was taller this year, even without being thinned. It seemed that as one flower or lettuce planting finished, there was space for the next season’s plants.

My heart fills with appreciation in the garden. I want to share, or the garden wants to be shared. I start extra plants for friends, so I don’t need to be precise about the number of seedlings that I grow for the garden. I have been able to give plants to the family homeless shelter nearby and the big community garden in town. I think a garden wants to be shared, because beauty is a language that heals and calms us. The way a new seedling’s leaf turns to the sun is beautiful, even with no adornment of flowers. To add a stunning scarlet bean flower to the already beautiful tri-part leaves makes a lovely statement in the garden. When we connect through beauty and appreciation, our unity strengthens good things like health and well-being for all.

Marlena Hirsch lives and gardens in Bennett Ridge.