Is it just me, or does anyone else find that just sometimes, just for a tiny moment, you wish that things would grow, flower, show their full potential a bit quicker?
......waits for flaming from the orthodoxy of gardening.........
Ok, well what I mean, or what I am pondering this morning, as I sip my huge vat of coffee, is how, in an age of instant gratification, do we cope with those past times, those activities, those phenomena of life which errrr, take a bit longer, or make you wait, and yet, there is nothing much that modern technology can do to speed up the process.
More than ever, if we want something, we get it - and we demand that we wait as little as possible for it.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a polemic about a human condition I see as repugnant and alien to my own. When pregnant with my darling boy there were moments when I daydreamed the possibility of fast forwarding things a bit (in a way which did no damage to either of us of course, and on another post I'll explain why my desire was acute at times). And I, like other mums, am delighted when the little one shows signs of mastering a skill ahead of his age. Also, I'd love it if someone told me I could lose all my pregnancy weight in two weeks, and as for that pushchair I've ordered, well it would have been great to get it today...... But then I am getting sidetracked. Or am I.
In fact, I see many parallels between a growing child and a growing garden. A child wont do anything before it's ready - you can't force them to eat solid food when they're not ready for it, nor can you train them to walk before time. And the same with the plants in my garden. As exciting as it would be to see them all in their full glory, this cannot be achieved by any means known to me so far. Some will flower by the end of the summer. Some wont do anything till next year.
But then, I wonder, if the marching of technology continues, will this be the case forever? Will we, some time in the future, be able to expediate the growing of children, the time spent in utero, the germination, blooming of plants and flowers.
Wow, a heavyweight piece of pondering for the morning. What got me thinking about this? Reading Gardener's World magazine last night, nearly every single plant or flower I saw that I liked were the kinds of things I would need to sow this year, and see nothing much of until next year. I found myself ignoring their possibility simply because I would have to wait to see them at their best. And this is where the parallel between garden and child is lost. One does not sit waiting for a child to come into 'bloom' or become an adult, ignoring all that they do in between time, or seeing it as the means to an end.
Rather we relish every day of their existence, seeing newness and beauty in all that they do, and in a way, cherishing their innocence, newness, their fragility. Perhaps it's time I applied the same motif to my plants, and rather than waiting for the glorious flower of the agapanthus, delight in the green of its leaves, the progress of its growth.
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