Problem Solving With Plants

Years ago my friend Jane was writing a book on the social and personal aspects of gardening and asked "Why do you garden?" I answered that I found it rewarding to fix issues and fit things together using plants and rocks like jigsaw pieces.

But by that I meant mostly hiding things with plants. Hide the a/c units, disguise the open expanse of our builder's lot, screen us from the road, hide the foundation waterproofing, create shade where needed, add height, dress a blank wall. All of that involved plant selections, and fitting things together just so.

When we moved to Santa Fe I loved having already established hardscape and plants, many quite mature. But I still approached designing gardens as problems to be solved. Screen the big dining room windows from street views, cover metal edging with creeping thyme, plant a tree to hide the neighbor's utility boxes, find a way to shade the patio. 

After I spent some time in other gardens in the neighborhood, I realized it would be nice to have a complete look, not separate elements I fixed to fit together because they were already there. I wanted flow in the back yard. I wanted cohesion.

• I didn't want to fix the Spanish broom's looming presence, I wanted to remove it.  

• I didn't want to hide metal edging or bridge transitions between rock installations with groundcovers, I wanted to eliminate them.  

• I didn't want to work around the issues of too-big shrubs in wrong places, I wanted to level things and start over.   

• I didn't want to maintain elements of a garden, I wanted to enjoy the whole, designed and fully irrigated.

This time I don't want to work with what I've got. I want to design something, not fix something.

So I took out shrubs that had outgrown their spaces, put in an in-ground irrigation system, removed awkward decorative rocks, designed a garden around the birdbath, edited random plants out.

I added things like a stone bench just because it was nice and I liked how it looked, not to hide anything.

I'm still fighting my tendency to problem solve. I'm still learning how to make things in my garden look natural and cohesive, not fixed or hidden.

I'm getting there.