In Praise of the Unfinished Garden

My garden has never been finished and, at this point, I suspect it never will be. There is a bed along the fence that I have been meaning to redo for six years. In that time it has hosted tomatoes, a volunteer squash of unknown parentage, a colony of mint that I regret, and, last summer, a family of rabbits that I did not.

Gardening books are full of plans: borders drawn to scale, bloom calendars, color wheels. I own several and have followed none. What I have learned instead is that a garden is a conversation, and the other party gets a vote. The foxgloves go where they like. The clay decides what lives.

There is a particular pleasure in the unfinished. It leaves room for accident, for the self-sown poppy in the gravel path, for the afternoon you meant to weed and instead sat watching bees work the oregano you forgot to cut back. A finished garden would be a photograph. Mine is weather.