The Wild Edge

A while back I heard a panel of women talking about gardening. The head gardener at Green Gulch, Sara Tashkar, talked about the wild edges of the garden. She'd picked the nettles there that day that had been made into a nettle pesto and was being served with fresh baked bread. The wild edge, stayed with me. I wanted one. It was the challenge, the suprise and the mysteries of a garden all wrapped into one.

I was reminded of all this Sunday as I was crouched down at the flower bed that is both the edge and the garden in my backyard. I was half covered by arching branches of spirea. Two four foot lillies were reaching for the sun between it and the fence. A leggy pot of mint was quietly getting bigger to my right. Chartruese volunteer fever fue that had escaped the bed was thick beside me and a rose scented geranium had morphed into a snake. It coiled from beneath the spirea. I bent my head under the branches and that's when it struck me.

I'd found my wild edge.

It smelled like roses and there was a stillness, a cricket in the bamboo above me, a spider hanging on the fence, a stillness that I suspect is still there even though I'm not.

I'd introduced all the plants at one time but it was clear as I rested in the tangle of scent and leaves that they were now co-existing in their own way. They were claiming this once almost manicured spot as their own.

In this tiny yard hidden from a busy street they were going wild. And I'll be the last person to put a stop to them. In fact, I may add some nettles.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you just love finding those little worlds? Those little bits of wild? I just love the secretness of it all.

Nettle is a wild thing to have. Scott had it at his San Anselmo house and it scared the dickens out of me. So prickly, yet you can eat it? Wild

Anonymous said...

I love reading your prose and poetry, and glimpsing life through your unique and magical lens!

Connie said...

Lovely, I'm now pushing away from the computer and headed out to the garden which I know smells so nice.

Kale for Sale said...

kendra - I do love it. The photo below of the weeds is from the edge of a construction site on SFD where they took out all the trees. Those weeds are all that's left of the wild site that was there.

Putting nettles in soup is my favorite way to cook them but people do all kinds of (excuse me but I have to say it) wild things with them.

tamara - Often cockeyed and crooked too but thank you.

verde - Good for you. We can't spend too much time in the garden. At least I can't.