Ask this question of a Depression/WWII kid such as myself and the answer is...first and foremost, a garden is for survival. When the going gets tough with the wolf at the door Homo sapiens, worldwide, scratch the earth and plant food crops. Food storage methods have been used, studied and refined over the centuries for the preservation of the species.

Ornamental gardening is the pleasant side of survival. Yes, there is an 'American style' of gardening. It is that garden where you happen to be standing anywhere in the 50 states. Our gardens are as diverse as the citizens of the country.

A garden is an enigma of frustration, mistakes made and hopefully corrected, a life long learning experience, food on the table, bouquets in the flower vase, sun on the back, fragrances, dirt under the finger nails and looking forward to a better garden next year. It is an experience which each of us feels in a different way. Enjoy the experience!

Seems like most of the answers don't answer the question.

"What do you think the boundaries are? What can legitimately be called 'garden'? "

The boundaries are not naturally defined, but can be defined for a given defintion of a garden. For example a 10" dish of cacti is a garden to some, but I think that most would agree this is not a garden - but this is just an arbitrary boundary. The coral at the bottom of the ocean is not a garden. Natural wilderness is not a garden.

Let's start with some boundaries:

- exists on a piece of ground, so a few plants floating in the middle of a lake is not a garden, but the lake can be part of a garden

- does it need to have living plant material? Again just an arbitrary boundary, but i think most would agree that a garden should have at least one kind of living plant material. So a square piece of green astro turf is not a garden. Neither is a well designed pile of rocks.

- the plant material is altered or maintained in some way by humans. A forest with a natural or man made path running through it, where no human alters the plant life, is not a garden.

- a garden has a purpose. The purpose can be many things, some of which are stated above, and it can have multiple purposes, but it does have a purpose.

So a garden is a piece of ground where a human is maintaining plant material for a specific purpose.

"a garden is a piece of ground where a human is maintaining plant material for a specific purpose" and finally some meat worth chewing on.

" "a garden is a piece of ground where a human is maintaining plant material for a specific purpose" and finally some meat worth chewing on." "

NO ... NOT meat just thick unhealthy FAT. More of the same gook !!!

A garden is not a place on the ground .... let's start their for a change .. only then we can find universal meaning in the word "garden". Unless ofcourse you just want to chew fat ... but my jaw hurts .. it can't chew anymore.

And please ... no more from the dictionary .. I have one too !!!!

What specific purpose ????? So everyone has a garden with only one narrow purpose or it's not a garden ?? How limiting. Have you checked garden web lately and seen all the purposes a garden can have ?? Do we only have one reason to make a garden ?

"A forest with a natural or man made path running through it, where no human alters the plant life, is not a garden."

Why not !!! Rubbish ... I say ... nature is a garden .. the grandest garden of all .. man did not invent gardens just like the earth is not the center of the universe. It's fraud on humanity to claim a forest is not a garden.

" ... legitimately ... "

In other words like a restaurant not being able to call itself a McDonald's until it pays it dues and conforms ?? Is this what a garden means to you ?? Conforming to boundaries ? Who sets the boundaries and why ??

Good Day ...

Mohave--

I disagree. Nature is most assuredly NOT a garden. It is what it is. "Garden" implies some form of artifice.

But then, we could quibble all day. If we are banned from the dictionary--may we at least quote?

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to meanÂneither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be masterÂthatÂs all."

good evening!

melanie

""Garden" implies some form of artifice. "

"We" are what we are ??

A garden .. my dear .. is not something you buy at Home Depot. In Humpty Dumpties terms ... someone pulled a fast one on you ( Us !! ) ... you see a garden as artificial because it was made by you .. and you are artificial and so it must be too ???

You are a human being and as much with nature as anything else in the universe ... your garden is as real as nature .. just as you are as real as nature. There is no duality. We are one with nature.

Good Day ...

"I have read that there is no such thing as an American garden as if that were a bad thing, why do they want that, so that it can be replicated over again."

I have no doubt this is true, unless it is not, in which case the discussion was doomed before it got started.

The plant material in a large heap at the extreme eastern boundary of my yard is not a garden in the traditional sense, as it is not maintained, but is altered when I throw another heap of clippings on top of it. Still it contains abundant life, or at least would in all probability had I the courage to turn it over to see what came running out. For at least half-a-dozen reasons it is uniquely American, and this cannot be disputed as I am paying the mortgage.

"We are one with nature."

Yes, but humanity has been trying to escape that for some time. From D.G. Hessayon's "The Lawn Expert" (chapter on The History of the Lawn):

"It was inside the castle walls that the English lawn began. There was an area of grass on which the knights and their ladies could walk and sit - well away from the smells and vermin of indoor living."

I have never believed that a garden can be purchased. PLANTS can be purchased, but a garden must be TENDED and NURTURED in some fashion. Hence the meditation gardens of Japan--nary a living plant, but some VERY carefully tended sand, gravel, stones.

melanie

TMK I am trying to put together what you have said above to see if it answers my question. You seem to be saying that a garden is not a man-made thing and that all of nature is a garden and that "anything (everything) else in the universe" is also nature therefore a garden And, Eric this does indeed sound Socratean, so there is no logical difference between any one thing and another, is that what you are saying. There are no boundaries at all.
As KarinL's post points out, nature has not changed only our perception of it has. Whatever we perceive a garden to be it is in its separatness from nature that it makes any sense.

Mel,
Don't tell my client that the invoice I just sent them was for a garden we just completed... and the the following invoices that they will receive is for the garden maintenance.

who said every one ( thing ) has their price ?

cha ching.

: ~ )
just rattling ya

Mich--

Never said WHO had to do the tending!

melanie/takes more than that to rattle me//mother of a 17 year-old male child

"As KarinL's post points out, nature has not changed only our perception of it has. "

Our perception of "ourselves" is what changes from time to time and hence our relation to nature. Why can't the world be our garden ?? What would the ramifications of that be ?? Think about that ? Better yet feel it !

When we see ourselves as nature ... which is what we are ... the boundaries disappear. There are those of us who walk in nature with the same ease and familiarity as others walk in their own "garden". I would speculate that to the american indian the whole of nature was their garden.

"And, Eric this does indeed sound Socratean, so there is no logical difference between any one thing and another, is that what you are saying."

Sort of ... as mjsee pointed out with regards to nature "It is what it is" .. however this applies to all things including ourselves. Unless ofcourse .. someone tells us otherwise then the boundary thing starts again ... and we go back to the question .. "What is a garden ?? " .. the only way to have a universal definition is to leave boundaries behind us. Kill the boundaries and we are in the garden and YOUR garden becomes my or our garden !!

Someone said they "unwind" in the garden .. that means to return to a previous state that some force moved us away from ... Right ?? ... gardening is the activity that negates the force that put us off balance ... unless ofcourse the gardener is filled with boundaries then the "garden" becomes pathological and drives us away from the true garden.

All of gardening is to get back to what we really are .. nothing but the experience of existence ... or the creation of existence.

By the way in the true garden is where the infinitesmal meets infinity !!!! Remember that ? Where their again but you got us here this time !! Just another way in LOL.

That's my answer to your question Ink !!

Good Day ...

"I have never believed that a garden can be purchased. PLANTS can be purchased, but a garden must be TENDED and NURTURED in some fashion."

.. and is it not more and more OBVIOUS that mankind MUST and currently IS TENDING and NURTURING the earth !! Our garden of all gardens. My own formal training is in eclogical science but my job is that of a gardener. There is a connection there you know !!

Are you aware that there are landscapers that rebuild "natural" areas disturbed by man's activities or other things like forest fires. They put the garden back together ... Why ??? ... What does the earth do for us besides the obvious and maybe not so obvious ecological functions ?? What is the psychology of it all .. the person that never experiences outside the "city" ??

A pleasure conversing with you .. melanie !

Good Day ...

Interesting discussion... I think most people, at some level, have a concept of a garden as a place where man has altered nature to varying extents. And certainly there seems to be gardens that are readily identified with a particular culture where you can say 'Ah - that's a Japanese garden' - or an English garden or an Italian garden... even though the specifics of each garden of a particular type may differ. I don't have an image of what is a 'Canadian' garden - I'm not sure what, if anything, that says about our culture or country though or whether it's a 'good' thing or a 'bad' thing. There are certainly regionally distinct architectural styles in Canada but not garden styles that I can see.

I grew up in what I consider an amazingly beautiful natural 'wild garden' - waterlilies in the lake; lady's slippers, ferns, club moss, trilliums, dog tooth violets in the woods; wild rhododendrons along the path to the lake; wild blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, bilberries, chokecherries on the margins of the fields and in clearings in the woods. None of those those were planted but were affected by, and affected, our family's activities. Is that enough to make it a garden or is it just nature? I do know that my perception of an attractive garden is strongly affected by the 'garden' I grew up in and my backyard gardening is more than a little driven by a desire to recreate in miniature the wild garden of my youth.

Perhaps another aspect of the question is - how does a distinct garden style arise?

"how does a distinct garden style arise? "

That is interesting ... indeed. Religion I propose has played a role in garden design and still does .. so eastern religions with gardens much more one with nature while western religions with their gardens more the reult of an hierarchy like god .. kings the common man. The boundaries.

I can't help but think to primative man all of it was a single garden and to some extent they must of felt a need to repair what they altered. Apparently .. your childhood gardens were a special place .. the earth was and still is a special place too ... and our gardens can reflect that image or message.

Interestingly .. it seems gardens like a japanese garden are often copied in regards to specifics but NOT in essence .. that is the original intention fades and we are left with only the activity or sheer tangible purpose of making such a garden and so we end up at Home Depot buying a japenese lantern to install in New Jersey. What's that about ? Something is wrong here ? Why not a New Jersey landscape in the essence of a japanese garden .. without the japanese specifics ?

Gardening is a spiritual activity and a garden a spiritual place. We have lost that ... I'm afraid ... so much so that the idea that "nature" is our garden seems ridiculous to all to many in the western world and we are left with goofy characters on TV telling us how to repair hoses and pull weeds .. treat lawn diseases .. fix sprinklers and so on !! The real essence has been lost.

Science has produced it's own version of the garden with production and profits as major motives ... with the good of the green revolution came the bad and now we are seeing more and more an attempt to be more "earth conscious" in agriculture that in theory will be better for the global environment.

Perhaps this "earthly consciousness" will lead back to the most significant role of gardening .. a return back to the true self... that was lost along the way.

Good Day ...

I understand what you are saying Mohave about nature being a garden and trying to get others to expand their own definition or let go of the boundaries.

I understand better now what you meant in the infinitesmal thread when you said place myself in the space that the bug occupies.

Nature is most assuredly NOT a garden. That statement made me twitch. This is from someone who as a child wandered through the woods as a playground. A place my parents felt was safe. My mother would drop me and my two brothers and the three boys next door off at a place called the Devil's Millhopper, a huge sinkhole with creeks that came out of the sides and disappeared at the bottom. We would spend half the day there looking for sharks teeth and keeping ourselves entertained.

My mom would just drop us off and come back later to get us, sometimes she would just stay in the car and read. This was when we were in the 6 to 12 year old range.

It is now a park and you can't just go climbing all up and down the sides and no parent today would dare leave kids to play alone like that. The kids today are all safe at home with their videos and X-box.

The woods are gone and everybody is scared. Nature did not change. We may just be trying to turn all of nature into that smaller definition of garden.

ilima

Ilima--

Take heart. We have 10 acres of woods in our backyard, including a creek, and my guys were ENCOURAGED to disappear for hours at a time. Now, granted, The Boy and one of his buddies showed up at the backdoor with a minor emergency that needed sticthes one afternoon when they were in 4th and 3rd grade...but it was fine. They were just more careful with their pocket saws after that. (Luckily the buddy's mom was a doctor and SHE was the one who gave the kids the folding pruning saws for their fort-builing...and she kept a suture kit at home.)

Would the guys have enjoyed their adventures as much if they thought they were in a GARDEN? I doubt it. Part of the appeal was being out from underfoot--away from adults. Part was the appeal of "uncharted" territory. They named all "their" landmarks. (One big hill was "Purple-Sky-Mountain--they found it at sunset one day...and then they were in trouble for getting home after dark.)

They knew only to cut on already downed wood (NOT a problem in a post-hurricane Fran woods) and they modified their space to their liking. I neither knew, nor cared to know, where there fort was. The Boy and his buddy would have HATED the idea that "their woods" was a garden. But perhaps we are arguing semantics again... To them garden implied a safe, ordered space, not their woods. (I know--because they used to help me in MY garden.)

These days The Boy still disappears into the woods with his buddies...but MY guess is that they are no longer building forts.

melanie

"When you die as the ego,you are born as a god,as the God." .... Osho On Zen

The mind becomes "ordered" as we learn .. it must I suppose but then their comes a day .. if one really experiences the message .. when one must "unorder" the mind .. or undo the education.

Then The Boy builds forts once again !!

It's not semantics .. it's beyond words and even logic .. I do little justice to it here but if someone could guarante me that I could give and my children would receive just one thing and only one thing before my death then of all possible things a parent could leave their children it would be the message I so poorly try to communicate.

I search for it in the garden ! My garden and yours.

Cheers ilima and melanie ...

Good Day ...

Nature poets can't walk across the backyard without tripping over an epiphany. Christian Wiman

To play with this word play a bit  perhaps a gardener is a "nature poet". Poesia from the Gk "to make, create". Nature, as I read this thread, is the big G Garden with the divine as its designer. We are most human when we create, but perhaps we've misunderstood "creation".

What's a garden? An American garden? Most of us are capable of hearing multiple levels of language simultaneously. I mean that "garden" can be spoken as a metaphor (or multiple metaphors), an abstraction or ideal, a philosophical form, or a physically defined space that happens to have your name on the deed  The real fun happens when we superimpose and blend all these gardens as we go along. Yet we can still distinguish them if necessary.

So Â

If a Japanese gardener accepts that garden and nature are one and the same, how might it impact the form of the physically defined space outside his home and how it is tended?
If an American gardener also accepts that garden and nature are one and the same, how might the form of the "garden" outside her home and how it is tended differ from that of the Japanese gardener?

What comes to mind from how I understand much of the American psyche is how we tend to buy things and work at things  WE have trouble understanding that playfulness, opportunities to play, might be the point.

Even when we become aware that we might be tripping over epiphanies all over the place, we keep working at it soooo hard  the way to get there is to play at it  even if the playground is bigger and a little riskier than one might wish Â

Wellspring

This sentence was in a Letter to the Editor of the Maui News today.

The Earth and its atmosphere may be likened to a finite garden plot in space.

ilima

I'll concede the point, gentlemen. The whole earth is a garden. Is what we do then an enhancement/refinement of our earthly garden--or should we just leave it alone? Entropy being Ma Nature's way?

melanie

Ah, Mel. Bringing in a little physics and thermodynamics (2nd Law) to the situation. I love it & the analogy to the above discussion!

It's been way too long since I had that course, but here is a good way of putting it: Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so. Think of the garden as the "energy", and that energy is changing from being localized (or "concentrated" somewhere) to becoming more spread out. What a wonderful way to think of the whole earth as a "garden".

BTW, I loved your story of 'the Boy' and his woods. Reminds me of my ownself and my brothers & friends. Girls like to play in the woods too! I expect in the small town where I grew up it's still safe to do so, and the woods are still there. Hmmmm....

She who knows no boundaries,
Elaine

I think I understand what you are driving at TMK but to quote an old Chinese saying "the first step to wisdom is getting things by their right name." On the spiritual level that you are trying to explain all boundaries are created by thought i.e. no thought = no bounadaries and in this state no need to call a space 'garden' or anything else. but on a physical level it is possible to define 'garden' 'nature' 'wilderness' and so on. What this means is that you cannot say that "the whole earth is a garden" until you explain what you mean by 'garden'.
"how does a distinct garden style arise?" I think when a given set of circumstances gathers together in one place a recognisable style arises. Take: the limitations imposed by climate, terrain, culture and available materials at a given time and I think you would arrive at all of the styles Woody mentions. If you take this same equation and apply it to an American Style or a Canadian Style you will see how difficult it is to come up with anything other than "Eclectic".

INK - I was thinking more about my question too and my conclusion is that there is unlikely to ever be a single American or Canadian garden style for the reasons you mention. I do think, though, that it is possible that regional garden styles could emerge with time - and have already to varying degrees I think. Time and geography seem to have a big impact. When I was thinking about this issue, I kept thinking of the old joke: Q. How do you tell an Eglishman from an American (or Canadian)? A. An Englishman thinks 100 miles is a long distance and an American (or Canadian) thinks 100 years is a long time!

"What this means is that you cannot say that "the whole earth is a garden" until you explain what you mean by 'garden'."

I have been defining "garden" for the entire thread !!! .. LOL .. I can't define it anymore .. whats left must be experienced. By the way NOT the whole world is a garden just the universe. LOL

"..."the first step to wisdom is getting things by their right name." ... "

YES .. thats the first step of knowledge ( not wisdom ) .. my degree is in science and I learned lots of words ... in fact too many !! .. the BIG step is to unlearn the words and experience what the thing is and NOT what you were told it is or should be ... I do not have to experience a garden as this style or that style. These are the things we pick up in art school or here or there as you grow up. Now it is time to throw off all of that and experience it for what it is.

There are no "levels" of seeing things this way today or that way at this momement ... it is what it is .. see it for what it is or you don't see it at all ! I do not have to experience "nature" as WILD and DANGEROUS or OUT OF CONTROL. These ideas were stamped upon us as we were growing up ... they are nonsense but powerful nonsense !

"I think when a given set of circumstances gathers together in one place a recognisable style arises. "

Sure .. Ink .. Eskimo's build igloo's out of snow NOT palm leaves but this is the content NOT the essence !! I can build a japanese garden without anything that looks japanese to anyone !

So by loose analogy .. we can all watch different shows on a color TV in our different countries in our different cultures but we are all watching electrons dance on the TV screen ... Right !

Without boundaries we ALWAYS see the electrons.

Good Day ...

"See it for what it is or don't see it at all Â"

One of the most dangerous things I've come across in our culture is a kind of pervasive polar thinking. Something is black or white, right or wrong, 0 or 1, toggle on or toggle off. Either you see it or you don't  but what if you close your eyes? Must we assume that you've blinded yourself? What if that happens to be the best way to see your inner garden  ?

Can't talk about style  American  whatever  but it might all curve back around splendidly to where you were going anyway, Grasshopper. Why not risk the exploration Â

Wellspring

"If an American gardener also accepts that garden and nature are one and the same, how might the form of the "garden" outside her home and how it is tended differ from that of the Japanese gardener? "

Wellspring .. all I can say with certainty is that the two gardeners that are one with nature although miles apart are living or acting from a simalar "EGO" then those gardeners that are not one with nature.

The trick is to break from one ego to the other from time to time in order to be fully alive .. it's a constant battle.

"Is what we do then an enhancement/refinement of our earthly garden--or should we just leave it alone?"

LOL ... well .. LOL .. I think if you see it all as one garden it will make you a happier person and that has to make the "garden" a better place ... it's about you NOT the garden. People that are fully alive are better for the garden.

It's better to just go sit in the garden ... or look into the eyes of that son of yours .. the one that played in the forest .. look deep .. like I will look tonight into my wife's eyes and those of my 19 month old .. Have I really experienced this person ?

It's a part of the garden we miss all too often.

Good Day ...

Hello Wellspring .. LOL

I said ""See it for what it is or don't see it at all Â" "

.. very bad words perhaps .. see it as it is and lets leave it at that !! .. better ?

Good Day ...

You do lift my spirit, TMK.

Walking in a green forest a few years ago, my son's hand curled like a leaf in mine. Husband a few steps in front. A delicious hush. My child-son speaks, "This is God's heart." Quiet, definite, no rehearsal of information Â

So, it's not a garden at all. It's god parts. Wonder which parts are "American"? Ask my Cherokee grandmother Â

Good night.

Wellspring

"With our thoughts we make the world" .. Buddha.

I thought this was phrased appropiately for a landscape design forum. How many of us check our thoughts before setting in ink our landscape designs ??

In my limited life ... I have only lived in two locations in the United States for any meaningful amount of time and have ofcourse seen other places but for only sheer momements here and their.

I have lived and was raised in the North East and later lived or became of "age" in the south west.

One can see many factors influencing landscape design of both regions ... certainly ... physical geography .. climate ... economics of the times .. the price of Real estate NOW in the southwest versus back then in the east in the 1900's and the economy of the post war years.

To sum up much of the landscape style in the southwest .. a reluctance to give up landscapes of the past places .. ignorance of the desert versus the coast .. east and west coast .. and trying to get the most crammed in a small space !!

There is one common theme .. our "ego" now is the same as it was before .. from the south west to the north east to the "old" world. That's the common denominator. Much of landscape design in the southwest is about "content" not "essence".

Yesterday .. I purchased a single copy of the "National Geographic Magazine". The jist of the article claimed .. buddhism was on the rise in places like China .. India and even the United States ...

.. buddhism .. the article continuesd .. was on the decline in Japan !! The "wellspring" according to the article ( believe it or not wellspring !! ) of buddhism in the United States.

The article claims there is simply no time for modern japanese to participate in traditional buddhist rituals .. except at funerals .. sounds familiar.

So .. how will this affect landscape styles in the US and Japan ? More important .. how will this affect life on the globe .. the garden ? What role will landscape designers play in this "changing of the guard !! "

Good Day ...

I am sure that "check our thoughts before setting in ink our landscape design" is an attempt to engage me in some way but I am not sure what it is. Neither am I sure what link you are trying to make between the article you refer to and the future of garden design. Can you explain a bit more?

Many years ago  perhaps in another life  I was the student of a thoughtful, artistic man. He was a teacher who knew all about books, but not from the perspective of what was between the covers. He studied and taught and traveled the world evaluating books from every time and culture as artifacts. He was most interested in those he considered to be objects of art.

This man invited my family to visit his home in England, which we did. I still know his address by heart  his name, Home Farm, village name, England. "What about a zipcode," I asked. "Don't bother  Their so messy," he replied. His letters to me were written on paper bearing a watermark of 1827.

The home was a converted late 17th century farm. Two barns with exquisite bone structure had been converted to house his private collection of antequarian books, including his particular favorites, illustrated manuscripts from the Irish. One of his favorite hobbies was bee keeping, and he was just then pleased to show us his newest dovecote. There was a long view from the left of the entrance of one of the "book barns" down between the cluster of stone buildings to a wide pond and then to fields beyond.

To call the intentional fecundity of the borders between the various buildings "cottagy" would either be redundant or misleading, redundant because this man had chosen to serve the genius loci, misleading because "cottagy" is yet another "look" that gets co-opted by Americans in search of a style.

This man's thoughts and experiences  and he was an old man then  impacted everything around him. If some other person's way of being grows from the thought "Let us walk gently on this earth", I believe that it could impact the landscape. And if the incessant buzz in one's being is "How can I make this look good to my neighbors?", then that, too, has a definite influence.

Wellspring

Who are you Wellspring and where did you come from such a short time ago? Could you flesh out your member page with some of your incredible prose?

ilima

As our spirituality changes our landscapes change .. thats all I'm saying Ink ... if our minds are calm we will be in the "true mind" then our designs will be true as well as the world we create.

A garden is simply a reflection of ones self onto the earth ... and when the earth reflects back we see ourselves again ... if it is true there will be no seams .. no boudaries ... just untainted expression of ones self.

Thats all we can hope to do in the garden.

Good Day ...

"As no two elements of nature are in conflict so when we perceive the ways of nature, we remove conflict within ourselves and discover a harmony of body and mind in accord with the flow of the universe." ... Master Kan.

WOW ... LOL.

Good Day ...

Kan do!

Mmnn, what a difference a year makes. Nostalgia on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Ahh the good old days.

How you doing INK?

jb

LMAO ... crazy .. Hello Ink and all .. I have finaly made it passed the bombardement of adversments to see what is up at garden forums.

Good Day ...

I'm doing OK Jb thanks for asking. MJK we miss you around here. Check out the PC contributions. Is it the publicity that keep out the real? Man it feels like we missed the 60's all over again.

a garden is whatever you want it to be. the real confinement of this discussion is language. a geranium in a clay pot can be clasified as a container garden. i know it's a great cerebral workout, which i am all for(i love philisophy), but what is the point, except self gratification

"My garden is not your garden is it?".
I don't know INK, I've never seen your garden.
Glad to hear you're doing alright though.

BumpÂ

Definitely worth a read (or re-read).

Wellspring

For me there is a difference between a yard and a garden. I had a yard at the apartment house I lived at before I moved to my current place. I never planted one single thing, even though I had permission and packets of flower seeds and good physical conditions.

I noticed that my yard here at my new place became my garden when I started thinking about how I would change it... how I could bring out the grace of the forsythia by cutting some branches... how the privacy of the backyard could be enhanced by extending some already established lines just a bit further, so as to work with the circulation of sight and of perambulation...

It became my garden instead of my yard whenever I thought about the spirit of the trees and plants instead of their utility. I plan to plant a cedar in order to block the view from a neighboring apartment house through my patio door, but that is for utility, and if that were the only change I ever thought about making, this would still be a yard. But in the process of choosing that particular tree, I learned that in nature, cedars grow right along with black walnuts, as they will do here, so it seems like introducing two new friends to each other in my backyard -- "Walnut, meet Cedar, just moved in from the clan farmstead. Cedar, meet Walnut, established and respected in this neighborhood for years." They nod and shake roots and become friends.

This yard is becoming my garden as I meet and collaborate with the spirits here to make a place where we all feel good about spending time with each other.

Yes: it's a garden if it offers recreation and a yard if it doesn't. Vegetable garden, rose garden, beer garden. Sales yard, lumber yard, yard work. People who don't get recreation out of their gardens do the latter, those who do garden.

I use the terms slightly differently bboy - the 'public', flowery garden is in the front yard and my woodland, private garden is in the backyard. I use 'yard' as a generic term to refer to the space the house (and gardens) sits in. Front yard, backyard, side yards designate which part of the space I'm talking about. So I see 'yard' as a neutral term but 'garden' does indeed imply recreation/enjoyment (pleasure garden...)

It's also regional. Gardens are vegetable plots here, something you have in the yard. Elsewhere the whole thing is the garden.

A garden memory:
While driving around in Sweden, on one of the larger islands near Stockholm, a sight caught my eye. There was a cliff with a steep staircase descending from it (a house was up there); all of the vegetation on the slope was natural, dominated by ferns - with one exception: a clump of red flowers, possibly coral bells, growing next to the stairs, about halfway down. It wasn't a screaming bright red, rather a soft one, but amidst all that green, it really radiated; yet didn't clash. It looked like it belonged there. Human interventions in nature rarely work that well.
A garden or not? In cases like this, boundaries don't matter, I guess.

To understand the way nature works, one should first observe and understand everything that happens in the garden. No matter how small, the garden is a place of intense activity, and you will get even more pleasure from it, and become a better gardener, if you understand what is taking place. What is a Garden?