12 The wild and cultivated garden

To get the wild true garden by unfolding, all we have to do, really, is what every good gardener does. Like a painter placing one color at a time, most carefully, giving each precious drop of color its life, we must pay attention to each place, flower by flower, bush by bush, one bit at a time, and ask what its character is. One place is shady, quiet. Another is hot, by a wall which the sun pounds. In another place, I walk to the tennis court, from the house, each day, and on my way I cross the lawn.
I ask myself what is the inner character of each of these spots, what I might do to intensify what is already there, how the character now latent there can best be amplified.
Of course, I am concerned with sunshine and shade, water, drainage, soil condition, a warm wall that catches the sun for growing peaches or honeysuckle; an old tree which can carry a climbing wild rose or clematis. That is just the stuff of gardening. But — and this is less obvious, to gardeners, even — here again, in making a living world, we must above all be concerned with centers. Centers govern life. The fundamental process asks us again to see, feel the centers latent in the land.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/7 The Character of Gardens#