PLANTS ON A PEDESTAL

This single grass plant
is on a pedestal made
from an old chimney pot.

It may not be immediately evident why I have grass in a pot. Not, that is, unless you have known me for some time. But I have become fascinated by what happens - not what we do in a garden but what happens of its own accord.

There was a time when people who came into my garden would stop and go 'Wow!'. From ground to sky it was a wall of leaves and flowers - a place secure and apart. Some found it a little overpowering, too dense. Others felt they were coming into a secret world, a present of surprise.

This nettle is one of the plants which arrived secretly as a seed, grew in my tray and I, subsequently, transplanted into a pot of its own. Nettles tend to grow in unsightly clumps. What we rarely get a chance to see is that they are, taken one at a time, stately plants with beautiful leaves. When this grows a little larger, I will move it on to a bigger pot. 

The garden as a garden began to lose its magic when I took out the jasmine because I didn't like its cloying scent, the Rambling Rector Rose because it was ripping the roof off the shed, the Madame Alfred Carriere Rose because . . . I can't remember now why I took that out . . . I took out one of the vines too because it was tipping forward and pulling down the washing line . . . and the Spanish Broom split. With all these big plants missing, the floor-to-ceiling, ground-to-sky atmosphere went. The structure of the garden vanished. Things fell apart.

I grow Lemon Balm in my garden on purpose but this plant is the result of a seed which, somehow, got into the tray.
It too now has a pot of its own. At different stages of its growth, balm, like mint, can look like a nettle.

I could have bought a whole load of new plants. Re-formed the garden. But my interest shifted - partly through necessity, partly because it just did. That was when the 'see what happens' began.

I'm embarrassed. I know this plant only by the name 'weed'.
I hope someone will be able to put me right
and tell me its proper name.
Hillwards suggests 'Fat Hen' - Chenopodium album.
Looks right?

Latest experiment - leave a tray of potting compost out in the air and see what plants arrive to live there.

Next stage - transplant these plants into pots of their own and see what happens next. The answer may be obvious. They will grow or they will die. But how often do we watch 'weeds' grow with this kind of attention?

Last week, we were having lunch in the garden, when my husband looked around and said 'Anyone coming here now might wonder, at first, what this is. Is it still a garden? Yet if they looked closer, they would find there's masses growing here, lot of different kinds of plants. Lots of interest. Lots to see'.

I tried posting this picture larger but,
in contrast with the elegant shapes
and beautiful greens of the other plants,
this self-seeded pansy looked brash.

There is! There are! There is! There are even some yellow pansies which found an empty pot and moved in unaided.

It's not so much gardening as watching growing. There should be a song about it. Maybe the nearest is 'I'm just sitting watching flowers in the rain, feel the power of the rain, making the garden grow.'

Lyrics

Listen to it sung by 'The Move'.

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