'Volunteers' in a Garden Can Be Part of the Greenery

Awhile back, bored out my mind at a solid week of rain, I wrote a blog on my love of wildflowers in perennial gardeners. I have never quite understood the tendency to treat gardening like an outlet for our latent OCD.  A lot of perennial gardens are so meticulously kept, that not just the weeds but the plants themselves wouldn’t dare step over some invisible line drawn in the sandy loam.  I look at those pristine beds, with a good six inches between one species of perennial and the next, and I just shake my head. 

I am a gardening Darwinist.  I dig in a bunch of perennials, let them slug it out until one plant or other takes over a spot and then move the loser elsewhere lest the poor thing get lost in the shuffle entirely.  There is no daylight anywhere between plants in my garden.  And if some ambitious aster or daisy-like flower pops up mid astilbe, it takes a lot to get me to root the thing out.  The popular name for that kind of plant behavior is a “volunteer”.  I like that notion. Volunteers give gardens a dynamic edge, make a bed anything but boring. Then again, maybe I’m just too lazy to play referee.

Just as I was about to vow to do better, I visited a museum show garden that stopped me in my tracks.  I saw herbs and flowers purposefully planted side by side. Plants tumbled over each other in playful abandon. It was my dream garden...come to life. Thus reassured, I look over my wild and undisciplined perennials with new respect. Go for it, guys!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.