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I'm re-reading 1491, which explores what the Americas looked like before colonization – challenging the commonly-held belief that the continent was a giant wilderness. In fact, it shows with compelling evidence, indigenous people for centuries had essentially gardened the landscape. Forests were park like with their openness, managed by skillful controlled burning. Food forage crops selected and cared for.
While I'm a fan of the riotous 'wild' style of gardening, it's as much a design decision as anything, in my opinion. When we were designing our kitchen garden on our farm, we ended up going in a formal direction. I'd been chatting with my brother, a Landscape Architect whose own work is usually more in the tropical/wild aesthetic. And he said, "you know, there's so much 'wild' on your farm already, that something more formal would provide a really nice contrast."
I also love 'zen gardens'. The Portland Japanese garden has been a huge influence on us, and a long time ago I bought a book that goes into depth on each species they use – how they create a 'Japanese Garden' out of PNW native plants and trees.
But the thing I've come to realize over time is that a garden can become, itself, a form of meditation. It's not an end goal so much as something that, through maintaining, you transform yourself. You learn to watch, observe, cultivate patience and acceptance.
One nice aspect of post-modernism is that you can do whatever the f*ck you want. In my opinion, the only thing that really matters is whether you're intentional about it or not.
> In fact, it shows with compelling evidence, indigenous people for centuries had essentially gardened the landscape.
Burning down the Western forests to for more grazing lands for wildlife was NOT "gardening".
> Food forage crops selected and cared for.
Agriculture was indeed known, but it used only a tiny amount of land. Very few tribes (if any?) depended fully on agriculture.
It wasn’t just burning. That wouldn’t even be that effective in most of the modern day US. Pruning and coppicing was also done to get continued productivity out of a given tree and to help keep the forest managed.
It _was_ mostly burning. And yes, it was wildly inefficient, but there weren't that many Native Americans overall.
As a result, most of the woods in Oregon are new growth. Natives did not allow large tree growth, periodically clearing them.
You know they did what we called controlled burns too, right? Like, we're not just talking about clearing for grazing land. There were epic forests on this continent when settlers arrived from Europe, free of brush in the understory, walkable for miles like "parks".
> You know they did what we called controlled burns too, right? Like, we're not just talking about clearing for grazing land.
Sure, on the East coast. And sometimes it was done to encourage only certain species of trees to grow.
This was far from "gardening", though.
It was ruthless industrial-grade resource extraction that completely ruined ecosystems. As a result, the biodiversity of large animals in North America is so poor compared to Africa or South America.
oh, not the native "controlled" burn myth again please.
If controlled means: without using firefigthers, water hoses, planes, excavators, satellite cameras... just let it burn until it stops
> I bought a book that goes into depth on each species they use...
Can you cite the book? This is a topic I'm interested in.
Thanks, I've read that one, it's quite good. I was actually curious about the zen garden in portland, though!
Shoot, was on my phone and misread. It's called "The Tapestry of the Four Seasons: Plants in the Portland Japanese Gardens".
It's almost pamphlet sized – and sadly I can't seem to find a live link on their site. The one here is broken:
https://japanesegarden.org/2018/06/04/symphony-in-green-plan...
But, I bet if you're really interested you could call in and ask!