Char's Blog
A Gardener Asks
Lots of work in the garden these days. I've been particularly fascinated by the way many shrubs and perennials horde their dead foliage close to their stems and roots. I was struck by my own tendancies to horde the "dead" pieces of my life close to my heart.
As I worked longer, I began to wonder:
Is there a purpose in this pattern within nature? Does the trapped foliage, in some state of prickly and dry or soggy clumps, have some benefit? If so, how do you get the most of it?
Perhaps those of you with more expertise could enlighten me.
And, one final query: if this is good for the plants why am I working so hard in my garden to get rid of all that is decaying and dead? Really, there are many other things that I can do :)
I was speaking to someone who looks after the local Ecology Garden, and she informs me that the purpose of all that dead foliage is to protect the rootball over the winter. In the Spring the decaying matter provides nutrients to the plant.
In the natural scheme of things, nothing would be done about this decaying matter, and the cycle would just repeat itself year after year. It is only because of our sense of order, or tidiness, that we clean it out and artificially feed the plant with fertilizer.
But this analogy reminds me of The Vine and the need to prune the branches. If all was as perfect as The Lord intended it to be, pruning would not be necessary, but because of Sin....
Thanks Arthur for the info! I really appreciate getting some info from someone knowledgable rather than simply guessing at it myself. As you can tell I was beginnning to head this direction with my own thoughts.
I agree we definitely need pruning. I wonder thought, as with our gardens, if we are tempted to want our lives "overly ordered" rather than accepting the natural cycles of life. If we want to mask or remove the nasty stuff because it doesn't look pretty enough to present. In so doing, do we rob ourselves of a spiritually richer life? Likely so.
Should I send Dave back to Toronto to do it for you? You know how much he enjoys that kind of work. He no longer has any grass, trees, or plants to care for here, and we know he likes climbing in the trees in the back yard.
Hi Tracy! Dave is always welcome in our yard! He can get his gardening fix here anytime!! :)