As I spent last Sunday in the garden, I thought about experimenting. My garden is the greatest experiment of all. The dahlias that grew strong and abundant in their first year, didn’t do so well in their second. I had lifted and stored them over winter, as all good gardening publications recommend. But for most of the summer, I was only rewarded with an abundance of leaves and small blooms. It was an experiment.
This year I separated the tubers into three different conditions. One was left in the flower bed overwinter, one in a terracotta pot left outside and one stored and replanted in soil in early March indoors. The one in the flowerbed has emerged with green shoots gently breaking the surface. The one in the pot rotted and ended up in the green bag. The remaining has just found a new home in the freshly dug flowerbed, its own green shoots a promising sign, but an experiment no less.
I love that every year is a new opportunity to try something new. This piece of writing from the Bedside Companion for Gardners: An anthology of garden writing for every night of the year - Edited by Jane McMorland Hunter perfectly sums up what it is to grow a garden.
”What failed last summer can be attempted in the next. Even as a flower dies it is preparing for the revival in spring. The continual cycle of decay and regeneration gives us forever the opportunity to broadcast fresh seeds, for there is one intrinsic truth: a garden never repeats itself. “ - A Second Chance - Mirabel Osler
But experimenting isn’t just for gardens, it's for life too. Life is one, hopefully long, experiment. We live each day, without knowing how it will all turn out. We try partners, locations, jobs, and hobbies to find what fits. Each time, not knowing for sure how it all turn out.
“All of life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some experiments teach us something, and others set us on another path entirely. But the more chances we take, the more opportunity that one of those experiments might pay off.
“What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” – Erin Hanson
I’m big on experiments. I’ve lived in 3 different counties and have pivoted my career through everything from chef to strategist and all the rest in between. It’s all one big experiment and continues to be so. I’ve never consciously thought of it this way until now. But there is something freeing in this subtle shift in perspective.
To view life as a series of experiments. If something doesn’t work, we change the conditions. But first, we must define what it means for an experiment to be successful. And this is the difficult part, the part where we need to understand what it is we really want. Not what our parents, society, and culture tell us we want, but what we truly want ourselves.
I only started asking myself these questions at 42, but now I know. And it’s not that different from my garden. I want balance, slowness and room to grow. This week a stranger told me if I plant the seeds, I just need to stand back and watch them grow. An experiment to see what will blossom and what will need nurturing for another season. And I am hopeful she is right.
As I walk through my tiny suburban garden each evening, observing its progress, I am reminded that it’s all an experiment. The thing that worked last year, might fail in this one. But in trying again it can be something more beautiful than before.
I’m curious, what are you experimenting with?