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Working with or Controlling Nature?
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it. My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature. |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it. My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature. Ah. Now my pleasure in my garden is greatly increased by the presence of birds, bees, damsel flies, frogs, newts, bats. And while I am not immediately enthused by aphids and bugs, I know their presence contributes to the number of birds, bats, frogs etc, and so I tolerate them. I'm not sure I can say I'm working *with* nature, at least as far as plants are concerned. I've just added 8 washing basket loads of Geum urbanum to the compost heap. And I do tend to sacrifice their needs to the needs of the various herbivores. But where I *am* working with nature is that I know what my soil conditions are and my weather conditions, and I grow plants which will like those conditions, rather than going to immense lengths to cosset a plant into survival in a habitat where it would rather not be. That gives me an immense amount of pleasure - to plant a plant, and watch it flourish all by its own efforts. Rather like introducing a child to a new interest, and watching it grow in knowledge, ability and enthusiasm all through its own work. -- Kay |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
Rupert (W.Yorkshire) wrote: A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it. My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature. I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything which is growing where you don't want it too? So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am just madly in love with nature full stop. Gail :-) |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:59:20 +0100, tom&barbara wrote
(in message .com): I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything which is growing where you don't want it too? So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am just madly in love with nature full stop. Gail :-) I'm pulling out a lot of weeds now and some of them might actually be nice things to let grow- if only I knew which ones they were. For example I'm pulling out a lot of clover lately and I have it in the back of my mind somewhere that it is a fairly benign plant. Could be wrong about that though. What would be really useful is a book or web page that informs about wild flowers and -most importantly- shows which ones would be tame enough to keep. I don't suppose there is such a book or web site in existence....? -- VX (remove alcohol for email) |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
"tom&barbara" wrote in message oups.com... Rupert (W.Yorkshire) wrote: A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it. My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature. I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything which is growing where you don't want it too? So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am just madly in love with nature full stop. Gail :-) I took a liking to Borage and allowed it to seed freely. I spent several hours today digging out just a few plants with roots as thick as my arm. Bloody stuff I *shall* control it . Would you like a few seeds of Borage or Comfrey, perchance you might like some Sasa Bamboo:-) |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
K wrote: "Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it. My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature. Ah. Now my pleasure in my garden is greatly increased by the presence of birds, bees, damsel flies, frogs, newts, bats. And while I am not immediately enthused by aphids and bugs, I know their presence contributes to the number of birds, bats, frogs etc, and so I tolerate them. Heh - I'll go one better. We've got a brown rat who lives under the water butt. My husband is immensely fond of him and has named him Mr Rat, and we all seem to live together quite happily; it's a good thing our cats aren't allowed outdoors. You can't really avoid rats living in the country. We've got a farm next door, so in season the fields are full of corn, and out of season our neighbours' chickens are being fed lots of nutritious grain. Along with the bird food and the leavings from the pub on the other side of our house, I suspect Mr Rat has a more varied and interesting diet than I do. -- www.gastronomydomine.com |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am just madly in love with nature full stop. I'm *largely* the same...unfortunately, one of our beds is full of ground elder. No chemicals are wicked enough for ground elder. If I could sell my soul to be rid of the stuff, I'd happily do so. -- www.gastronomydomine.com |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
"K" wrote in message ... "Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it. My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature. Ah. Now my pleasure in my garden is greatly increased by the presence of birds, bees, damsel flies, frogs, newts, bats. And while I am not immediately enthused by aphids and bugs, I know their presence contributes to the number of birds, bats, frogs etc, and so I tolerate them. Agreed. I too like the wildlife but I do not knowingly do anything to encourage them . I'm not sure I can say I'm working *with* nature, at least as far as plants are concerned. I've just added 8 washing basket loads of Geum urbanum to the compost heap. And I do tend to sacrifice their needs to the needs of the various herbivores. There's someone I can admire. Bugga the laundry. Let's use the basket for gardening. But where I *am* working with nature is that I know what my soil conditions are and my weather conditions, and I grow plants which will like those conditions, rather than going to immense lengths to cosset a plant into survival in a habitat where it would rather not be. That gives me an immense amount of pleasure - to plant a plant, and watch it flourish all by its own efforts. Rather like introducing a child to a new interest, and watching it grow in knowledge, ability and enthusiasm all through its own work. Again that's a me too with a but... I do like to have a crack at growing stuff that is perhaps on the borderline of what the W. Yorks climate will permit. I mean the sort of things that some of the "Southern bedwetters" talk about:-) FWIW I do think we exercise a strong degree of control by just being a gardener. -- Kay |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
I took a liking to Borage and allowed it to seed freely. I spent several hours today digging out just a few plants with roots as thick as my arm. Bloody stuff I *shall* control it . Would you like a few seeds of Borage or Comfrey, perchance you might like some Sasa Bamboo:-) Just had a good giggle at image of you up to your neck in Borage Rupert :-) I have Borage growing all over the garden and I love it, it's so pretty and always looks good in the jug of Pimms I like to enjoy on a hot day. Haven't got any Comfrey though? Emmm...off to google it and see if it's pretty. Gail :-) |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
VX writes
On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:59:20 +0100, tom&barbara wrote (in message .com): I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything which is growing where you don't want it too? So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am just madly in love with nature full stop. Gail :-) I'm pulling out a lot of weeds now and some of them might actually be nice things to let grow- if only I knew which ones they were. For example I'm pulling out a lot of clover lately and I have it in the back of my mind somewhere that it is a fairly benign plant. Could be wrong about that though. What would be really useful is a book or web page that informs about wild flowers and -most importantly- shows which ones would be tame enough to keep. I don't suppose there is such a book or web site in existence....? Tame depends a bit on where you are. For example, people pay good money for Alchemilla mollis and struggle to keep it in their gardens, while others of us pull it out by the dustbin-load. A good few of the things that aren't tame enough to keep are in fact introduced plants which started off as garden plants (although some have now escaped into the wild) - Russian Vine, Japanese knotweed, Himalayan Balsam, Boston Ivy, Crassula helmsii. There are few really horrible natives - dandelion, bindweed, couch grass, horsetail and ground elder, and that's about it. Oh, and rosebay willowherb, but that's introduced. -- Kay |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
"tom&barbara" wrote in message oups.com... I took a liking to Borage and allowed it to seed freely. I spent several hours today digging out just a few plants with roots as thick as my arm. Bloody stuff I *shall* control it . Would you like a few seeds of Borage or Comfrey, perchance you might like some Sasa Bamboo:-) Just had a good giggle at image of you up to your neck in Borage Rupert :-) I have Borage growing all over the garden and I love it, it's so pretty and always looks good in the jug of Pimms I like to enjoy on a hot day. Haven't got any Comfrey though? Emmm...off to google it and see if it's pretty. Gail :-) Well I hope you are feeling "broody" :-) "An infusion of borage acts as a galactogogue, promoting the production of milk in breastfeeding mothers" http://www.gardenguides.com/herbs/borage.htm |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote FWIW I do think we exercise a strong degree of control by just being a gardener. I agree with that. You can try to go along with nature, but only up to a point. Although I call the area down at the end of our plot the 'Wild Garden' and let the grass grown long and the wild flowers seed around, it's still managed and not really wild. Some plants turn up on their own and are welcome (except the marestail), but if I didn't step in and enforce a bit of order now and then it'd all revert to scrub in no time. For a start I'd soon be overrun with sycamore blowing in from next door, brambles introduced by birds and oak saplings from acorns planted by squirrels and jays. -- Sue |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
Sue wrote: I agree with that. You can try to go along with nature, but only up to a point. Although I call the area down at the end of our plot the 'Wild Garden' and let the grass grown long and the wild flowers seed around, it's still managed and not really wild. Some plants turn up on their own and are welcome (except the marestail), but if I didn't step in and enforce a bit of order now and then it'd all revert to scrub in no time. For a start I'd soon be overrun with sycamore blowing in from next door, brambles introduced by birds and oak saplings from acorns planted by squirrels and jays. That's when you introduce chickens! They are great at eating pests, seeds and fantastic at scratching the soil to a wonderful fine tilth, manuring as they go along, ready in no time for you to plant a crop :o) |
Working with or Controlling Nature?
but I DO recall that they were
speedily confined to their pen again. -- Sacha 'controlled' :-(( Mike -- ------------------------------------------------ Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association www.rnshipmates.co.uk International Festival of the Sea 28th June - 1st July 2007 |
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