The photos in this post are all from Ed Merrin’s amazing landscape in Croton on Hudson, NY. He worked with Patrick Chasse to create this marvelous garden.
Any gardener knows that we are living within a world swirling with unseen energies. This understanding is not new. As Alan Watts, the great Zen author, wrote in his book, Tao: the Watercourse Way:
The great Tao flows everywhere
To the left and to the right,
All things depend upon it to exist,
And it does not abandon them.
To its accomplishments it lays no claim.
It loves and nourishes all things, but does not lord it over them.
A unique way to keep the ponds recirculating - Merrin collected and sold ancient artifacts.
Alan Watts used a watercourse as his principal metaphor for the Tao. A stream, he says, cannot be held in a bucket and such is the nature of the Tao, or energy, that lies within and around all natural life. A flourishing garden spotlights this intelligent rhythm and serves as our everyday repository of life…with no claim to its accomplishments.
Bottlebrush buckeye and dark-leaved Elderberry - perhaps ‘Black Beauty’ - make a striking pair in Merrin’s pondside planting.
Creating a garden is one way, among many, to know Nature. You have the opportunity to become the director and overseer of a living world of your own. By your hand, you can determine the lay of the land, the entryways, the plant life, the features and the boundaries. You learn, almost unconsciously, about microclimates, dormancy and life cycles. You see what things survive, even thrive, together and you lose track of time observing and tending your private world. If you have the temperament and are attuned to your garden you will always learn something from your time there.
The umbel flower of the dark-leaved elderberry. What a lovely contrast between the light pink blossom and dark foliage.
Watts counseled us to “watch the processes and patterns of nature, and by the meditative discipline of allowing our minds to become quiet, so as to have vivid awareness of ‘what is’ without verbal comment”. A garden can help immensely to provide the conditions for such a discipline and bring about our ‘vivid awareness”.
The entry to the zig-zag bridge above the pond at Ed Merrin’s home.
Rachel Carson, the author of the ground-breaking book, Silent Spring, used a stream as a metaphor too. In her commencement address at Scripps college in 1962 she warned us,
“The stream of time moves forward and mankind moves with it. Your generation must come to terms with the environment. You must face realities instead of taking refuge in ignorance and evasion of truth. Yours is a grave and sobering responsibility, but it is also a shining opportunity. You go out into a world where mankind is challenged, as it has never been challenged before, to prove its maturity and its mastery — not of nature, but of itself.
Therein lies our hope and our destiny.”
Our environment needs protection - in any way that is possible. Eliminating use of certain poisons , plastics, detergents is a great start. The stream of life goes on and we must make sure to keep it fresh and clean!
Irises blooming in Ed Merrin’s marvelous garden. Go here to see how to visit it.
I hope you enjoy Gardentopia - it is my way of sharing a love of gardens and garden making with others.
What a gift! Thank you Jan for your thoughtful and powerful words on the sacred experience that is gardening.