When times are tough — and this certainly rings true right now — images of bountiful gardens, gardens overflowing with fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers, where birds orchestrate the atmosphere, bees serenade and butterflies dance — have a tendency to spring to the fore. Gardening tools are dusted off or purchased and, with the best of intentions, new gardens are hurried towards being born.

Gardening books and magazines are suddenly in demand, YouTube gardening videos score ‘likes’ galore and another generation of gardeners bursts on to the scene expecting their just rewards. But there is more to gardening than someone else’s shared knowledge, useful as that wisdom may be.

A gardener, if they are to successfully grow the garden of their innermost dreams, must create their very own encyclopedia of knowledge — knowledge about every single aspect of their own particular garden and the minutiae which make it the exclusive realm it indisputably is.

It takes quite a few years, and many changes of season, until a gardener can, with any degree of confidence, say ‘tomatoes will do well over here this year and dahlias there’ or ‘that location is perfect for a permanent bed of roses, this one for perennial herbs and a couple of citrus trees will be happy over there.’

Before this stage, everything is largely trial and error and, at the base of it all, observation.

Learn to listen to your garden and it will, without words, tell you what — and where — you should do and grow

The would-be gardener must slowly introduce themselves to the piece of earth they have been given the privilege of tending and both listen and learn the secrets it is eager to share, to make this precious partnership succeed.

The gardener, the earth and all of the varied life forms — be these seasonal or permanent residents — need to be totally tuned in to each other if they are, working together, going to achieve the harmonious balance necessary for bounty and beauty to honour each other and, above all, thrive.

Books, videos and someone else’s knowledge are there for guidance, for suggestions, for back-up. They are general, not specific to your own location and, invaluable as they are, they are no replacement for personal observation over lengthy periods of time.

Just because a neighbour spent last Sunday sowing pumpkin seeds doesn’t automatically mean that you should rush out and follow suit, sowing the seeds in a similar position to those on the other side of the garden fence, because you know the neighbour always harvests lots of pumpkins — what happens in the neighbour’s garden may not necessarily happen in yours. Close by buildings may angle sunlight and wind differently, the neighbour’s garden may slope eastwards, your own more towards the south, their pumpkin patch may benefit from noontime shade thrown by a mango tree and your garden may not have any shade at all, and so on. You must learn to judge such matters for yourself. Although, if you relax, float away into that special ‘time warp’ that links your mind and the living essence of your garden together, your garden will, without words, tell you what — and where — you should do and grow.

The creation of fertile soil conditions aside — although this is of primary importance — a gardener must study each and every aspect of their garden at each and every hour of the day and all the year round — come rain or shine, come heat or cold. Wind directions in spring, winter wind directions, angles of sunshine, hours of direct sunshine each month of the year; nothing in nature is static.

The gardener works with an ever-changing canvas and a palette of plants to match and with a very special something scientifically known as phenology which, in time and very unscientifically, becomes a subconscious rather than a conscious way of gardening.

Phenology is, basically and simply speaking, the observation of just how intricately inter-linked are birds, bees, butterflies and all other members of the insect and animal kingdoms, with the growth habits of plants, with climatic and soil variations and all else in the natural world. Amongst the easiest things of obvious note are that almond trees burst into blossom just as the swallows arrive back from their winter homes, eager and hungry to feast on the tiny black flies that, without the swallows’ intervention, can decimate almond blossom in no time at all.

The gorgeous sight of almond blossom inspires gardeners to rush out and invest in summer seeds but, as phenology has proven time and time again, summer seeds should not be sown until first peach, then pear and apple, and finally plum blossom has unfurled delicate petals and honey bees begin to swarm. If fruit trees blossom too soon, before the bees and other pollinators are active, the fruit crops will fail.

These are just a few of the inter-linkages a gardener needs to learn about and to accept that, while none of them are carved in rock — climate change is having an increasingly obvious effect on many aspects of gardening — it is natural guidelines, those that nature presents us with each day, which ultimately dictate whether or not a garden can be termed successful.

Open your eyes, your ears, your heart and your head, and let nature be your guide.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened.

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 19th, 2020