I was thinking about perfection this morning and particularly garden perfection. Besides the fact that we each have our own ideas of what a perfect garden looks like – it occurred to me – as I was about to snip off an almost-finished-blooming Rose Campion – that the few flowers left would mean a lot to the swallowtail butterflies who inhabit my garden. I left little self-seeded patches of it all through the garden this year because I noticed last summer that it was the preferred food for these swallowtails. I find the color a little garish for my taste and was about to pull up all the Rose Campion plants around the garden when I noticed this. I decided then, that if I truly want butterflies in the garden, I would need to let go of my taste in flowers and adapt more to theirs.

Years ago – when it was all the rage to create a Wildlife-friendly garden (and get a sign certifying that it was!), one of the things that was important was a “pile of brush and branches”. This was for the multitude of creatures that would inhabit it – from toads and snakes to butterflies! Nature truly needs a little messiness! Having spent the last few years making hugelkultures and tucking log chunks and twigs in and around plants, I am beginning to actually understand the benefits of these sorts of messiness.

Letting the leaves that fall cover the ground all winter and keeping bare ground covered with something all year – really does create healthier happier plants and soil! I have piled leaves on rock hard soil in the fall and had the worms and the moles who came looking for them and all the busy microorganisms, turn it into soft usable soil by spring! Now that we are learning more about the bacteria and fungi in the soil we are discovering that it is this “messiness” that feeds them – and they in turn make food available for the plants they live around. Allowing the oak leaves to stay on the ground under the oak trees and fig leaves under the fig, etc., feeds, we are finding, the particular bacteria that each of those trees need to thrive. Our tidiness can disrupt this natural process. Yet another reason to let go of our obsession with neatness…

Another consequence of our over-tidiness is that we disrupt the natural process of plants going to seed and reproducing themselves. Of course, there are many plant that we purposely “disrupt” because we don’t want them spreading themselves willy-nilly around our gardens – plants we think of as “garden thugs”! However, for the rest, I find myself learning to relax around waiting for my favorite foxgloves or collard greens or lettuce to finish the process of setting and ripening seed, so that I can remove their scruffy-looking remains to the compost – AFTER I collect the seed. I now have so many re-seeding and spreading plants in my garden that I was able to give away dozens this spring! I so enjoy doing that, that I leave plants growing in pathways and on the edges of veggie beds, knowing someone may come along and take them home!

Another aspect of letting go of the need for perfection is learning to tolerate some bug and critter munched fruit and veggies. I have lost lots of stuff to bugs and larger furry and feathered creatures over the years – but have accepted that that is part of gardening, I guess. If something gets destroyed by insects every year no matter what I do — I let it go. If it’s something I really love and want I will see it as a challenge to outwit the creatures in some way… plant at different times, cover with row cover cloth, feed the soil and feed the plants to make them strong enough to survive attack. I have dealt with spider mites attacking my beans the last few years and it seems that keeping things sprayed down with water when it’s hot and dry, really helps. I just never see spraying with poison as being an option. It’s never been in my bag of tricks and never will be. And now I have lots more reasons for not going that route than I did 50 yrs ago. I think if we DON’T see this as an option we will find alternatives. We are creative beings, we humans, and I believe that we will find alternatives that will help us restore balance on this planet. But first we have to let go of our version of perfection and embrace more of Nature’s version…