From a Distance

I watch a show from time to time called Gardeners’ World. One of the gardens you see frequently belongs to the host, and is a place called Longmeadow. My wife and I recently watched an episode from about 8 years ago, and we noticed something very different to the recent seasons. The camera would sometimes view from directly overhead, or very close up. Longmeadow, held up as the most pristine, victorious of gardening efforts, showed us weeds. It showed us patches in the borders of the garden without a plant for 3-foot diameter circles. It showed plants flopping wrongly over other plants.

Longmeadow Garden

In modern seasons most of the shots of the gardens are taken from a middle distance, say greater than 50 feet, maybe more, unless they are zooming in on one flower. But I don’t mean single flower stills or bloom shots, I mean when we see the whole garden. Those are always further away, and more importantly shot approximately at the height of the flowers. You are looking through the garden, and you can’t see the ground.

Why bring it up?

Because from a distance at the height of the most majestic things in bloom, a garden looks very different than up close or looking down. From that range a garden looks like, well, a lie.

We have made much on this section of the site that a garden is a wonderful place to learn lessons for life. This is another lesson. There is nothing wrong with presenting your garden, aka. your life from a distance, but you have to always remember that in any life worth living, eventually people have to step closer to you. They need to see the weeds and the bald patches. You cannot maintain a parody. Patches can be fixed, spent flowers deadheaded, and weeds pulled. Better that you tell others the truth of it, and yourself the truth of it too.

If everyone walks through life thinking, “This perfection is what everyone’s garden looks like,” they begin to feel less or small when they look at the brambles in their own patch, when in reality we all have those stark failures, patches of ground in which we can’t seem to get anything to grow, and weeds that just keep coming back. When we are able to see everyone fights through the same, we don’t feel so alone.

Remember to look at, and present your garden from every angle, near and far. Both are the truth.