Foundation Plantings

I think it was Tolstoy who dreamed of many lives woven into one—farmer in the morning, artist in the afternoon and philosopher in the evening. In Zen we advocate another version of this integrated life—to meet everything that comes, from dirty dishes to the electric bill to the late spring daffodils, with full attention and appreciation.  Yesterday, I had the chance to practice.

In between being with coaching clients and Zen students, I was outside arranging and planting the ‘foundation plants’ I bought: a small weeping Japanese maple, a wonderfully fragrant Korean spice viburnum, a dark-leafed pink azalea and a robust three-foot tall roseum elegans rhododendron topped with buds the size of pine cones. I bought them from Hank at the local nursery with one arrangement in mind, then allowed the future composition to shift as I contemplated the space and imagined the full-grown plants.

Planting a garden is about imagining the future. How will this small seedling look in mid-summer when it is blooming? Is it short or tall? What colors and textures will it bring to this area of the garden? What else around it will be blooming or past? Some people do this in an organized way, with lots of research and a carefully crafted garden plans and drawings. I’m more a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy and have learned to trust my intuition.

In life-coach training I learned that ‘intuition is always right–but sometimes only 5%.’ Just because I have a gut feeling about something doesn’t mean that what I imagine is actually going on or going to happen. But when I have that intuitive sense, it does mean that something is going on and going to happen. Acting on our intuitions as provisional truth leads us to learn more. Sometimes it is necessary to be 95% wrong to get to what is really happening. It may be awkward and embarrassing, but it can be quite useful.

With the garden (as with life) I often think it is better to make a pretty good decision than it is to try to make a perfect decision. Life offers us multiple possibilities at every moment and each possibility leads us into the fullness of our life. Some possibilities may lead to smoother outcomes that are more in line with our hopes and dreams, but even the decisions we make that get us into trouble and cause conflict are also true and necessary.

In the garden, sometimes I place the plant in exactly the right place. Other times the plants I place have to be moved again and again before they find their best place. And sometimes, they don’t even survive my intuitive decisions. But each place is exactly the right place and leads to the garden of the future and, hopefully, improves the mind and wisdom of the gardener of the present.

Wendell Berry says, in one of his wonderful poems, that the job of the farmer is not just growing the crops, but also enriching the soil and cultivating the farmer’s mind.

As I dig the larger hole for the lovely budded rhododendron, I note there are no worms in the recently filled soil around the new foundation. I work in some organic matter and say a silent blessing that this soil may, over time, be a nutritious home to worms, bugs and all kinds of fungus to support the plants—as well as for these wondrous plants that will be the backbone of my garden for years to come. I look forward to watching and working with the results of my intuitive decision and vow to keep learning and appreciating.