Nature isn’t perfect and you shouldn’t expect your garden to be so. Most people love to see immaculately pruned, trained, trimmed and pampered formal gardens that look like a magazine cover or perfect painting.
When I approach a garden space, the plan and layout emerges more than it is designed. The focus is initially on on practicality of the essentials (composting, pathways/access, potting up areas and availability of water). These are all considered with reference to light and shade (sun exposure) in the space.
Instant gardens fade quickly and require demanding attention. You may be happy with your newly installed catalogue garden but its not likely to stay that way without a lot of working against nature. Nature wants imperfection and diversity. So don’t fight it, work with it.
In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature.
