Chaos rules
Embracing the element of creative surprise in the garden
Gardening has always been more about enthusiasm than exactitude for me – a fact that will come as no surprise to anyone who’s walked past my front plot, jam-packed as it is with plants jostling for attention. It’s made up of two domineering flowerbeds split, grudgingly, by a winding path, which is regularly invaded by low-growing geraniums and unruly strawberries. The atmosphere is one of jovial approximation, and despite the amount of planning that goes into this patch, nothing is too particular or precise.
Ultimately, I’ve never had the heart to impose strict rules or training regimes on the borders, and while I’ll spend hours pruning, dead-heading and mulching, I leave most of the decisions down to the plants themselves. This laissez-faire attitude reaches its peak when, at the end of the season, I empty unused seed packets and seedheads into any gaps I can find, trusting them to create the broad brush strokes of next year’s display. Up until recently, I thought of this as just another sign of my general scruffiness, but it turns out that it’s a style of gardening deserving of a name – ‘chaos gardening’ – and it’s gaining popularity.