Gardens are generally classified by types of formality (cottage vs parterres), cultural (French, Italian, English), use (vegetable, perennial, cutting) and so forth.  Yet, gardening (as opposed to gardens) divides itself by time.  There is, of course, the relentless seasonal clock.  This yearly cycle’s implacability is both a frustration and comfort.  The seasonal change is often a relief for the garden.  Winter, at least in New England, cleans the garden; fall and spring clean-up is as vital to its health as division, planting or trimming.  It means that the evil looking squash bed will soon be swept away, and maybe next year will be better.  The seasons guarantee a constantly changing landscape, always something new to look at.

But time is also a much larger construct in gardening.  A garden can be a seasonal, decadal or generational construct.  A vegetable garden or cutting garden can be created for a season, from bare earth to bare earth in less than a year.   It doesn’t have to, of course; it can have a permanence in the use of borders or perennial herbs, horseradish, rhubarb, wormwood, thyme, tarragon…so forth.  A perennial garden needs a decade at least, it changes yearly as plants expand or die, but the best results are about five years in on a plan.  The master gardener is one who can continue to plan within the existing garden, they don’t need to start fresh every few years.  But then there is the landscape gardener.  They work with, and must have the patience and vision for, shrubs and trees.  The results of what they plan will usually  not be seen by them, but they know it any way.  Here the master is one who not only can work in the existing structure, but whose plan is pleasing at all stages of its growth.  While a perennial bed can look odd in its spring that lasts but a few weeks, a landscape’s spring lasts for decades, it must always work, even if its ultimate triumph is a century in formation.  Ideally, all gardens (landscapes) should incorporate the three senses of time, from the vivid flash of the impatiens to the oak’s centuries. 

If only!