Reflections: Where to Draw the Line

Reflections from the Publisher: Where to Draw the Line

James Fox-Smith

My wife and I have been arguing about mowing. I would like to mow more, on the logic that the small patch of groomed land that separates our house from the surrounding forest seems in danger of being swallowed by it. Especially now, when the weather gets warm, and things grow so fast that it’s like living in Where the Wild Things Are. Seriously, we can almost watch the several-acre stand of giant bamboo (that dates from some ancestor’s desire for a supply of cane poles) advance across the back lawn.

My wife, on the other hand, would like to mow less, her elemental passion for gardening having evolved to embrace replacing swathes of perfectly mowable lawn with an expanding labyrinth of plantings, and letting Mother Nature have her way with much of the rest. This last development is the result of her having fallen under the spell of a horticultural influencer named Edwina von Gal. Despite having the name of a Bond villain, Ms. Von Gal is actually a quite famous landscape architect from East Hampton, NY, who espouses a gardening philosophy based around sustainability and natural landscapes, and who recently gave a talk at New Orleans’ Longue Vue House and Gardens that my wife attended with shining eyes. In recent years Ms. Von Gal has championed an initiative she calls “Two Thirds for the Birds,” which maintains that out of every three plants a gardener plants, two should be native species. The logic of this is unassailable: birds’ numbers are dwindling; they need native plants to survive. We as stewards of landscape should support their wellbeing by planting things that sustain them. What sort of bird-loathing obsessive, my wife implies, wouldn’t support such an earthy, wholesome line of thinking?

To this I have several responses. The first is to point out that we live in a jungle, against which we have invested in an armored division of lawn care equipment to defend our house. And as for the birds: judging by the number of them nesting on the porches, in the carport, barn, and chimney, it appears they have the upper hand (or claw). Currently I would say we’re at about nineteen-twentieths for the birds and losing ground all the time.

The second is to protest the accusation that I have something against birds. Actually I love them, which I would think might be evident by the amount of time and energy I’ve lavished on the fifteen spoiled chickens currently languishing in extreme comfort, who would be instantly eaten were they to set one feathered foot beyond the confines of their custom-built coop and the groomed portions of the backyard.

And the third is to acknowledge that my quest to impose any semblance of order upon my surroundings is a losing battle in any case. As I write this I’m gazing glumly at an enormous white oak that came crashing down during a freak storm on Sunday night, and is now lying across about half the yard daring me to do something about it. That won’t be easy. Eighty feet tall (or long), this tree has a trunk that must be the width of an Amtrak train. Cutting it up and hauling it away is going to provide more than enough to keep my mind off of mowing through the summer, at least.

So, yes. On the remote patch of land over which my wife and I wield any influence, the birds would appear to be winning. There will be little mowing to interfere with my wife’s plans to plant things everywhere, at least until I can clear enough of that white oak to get to the barn where the mower lives. The fallen tree in the yard is a headache—a challenge to my instinctive desire to exert control on my surroundings. But maybe there’s a broader lesson here: That perfection is overrated: that the quest to impose it on the natural landscape is a fool’s errand. And even if we do, briefly, seem to attain control, nature always wrests it back soon enough. Instead, perhaps perfection is not trying quite so hard to impose order on everything, and accepting that living in the world inevitably comes with its fair share of chaos. That sounds a lot like embracing one’s place, which is the theme of this issue after all. So, this summer, while my wife is out there happily digging up the lawn, maybe I’ll forgo the mower, let the wild things do their thing, and reach for the wood splitter instead. I imagine that the birds, not to mention Ms. Von Gal, would approve.