We tend to see a garden, even a vegetable garden, as being a little slice of nature. But a garden is entirely a man-made structure. The choice of plants to add to the garden, and the choice of the plants and animals to keep out of the garden, are all done by design.
When done well they may reflect nature, and contain aspects of nature. But they are in fact entirely artificial.
In general, as observer and naturalist, Thoreau refused to make what he called “invidious distinctions” between different orders of nature—it was all equally wonderful in his eyes, the pond, the mud, even the bugs. But when Thoreau determines to “make the earth say beans instead of grass”—that is, when he begins to garden—he finds that for the first time he has made enemies in nature: the worms, the morning dew, woodchucks, and, of course, weeds. Thoreau describes waging a long and decidedly uncharacteristic “war … with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dew on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling trenches with weedy dead.” He now finds himself making “invidious distinctions with his hoe, leveling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another.
SOURCE Michael Pollan Beyond Wilderness and Lawn Harvard Business Magazine
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Christopher Alexander makes the same point, talking about the scenic open spaces in southern England, which have the appearance of nature by are carefully tended and regulated in Creating life vs preserving nature
Yet, even though they are artificial TK – Gardens can teach us about nature § 202301082150
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