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Teaching Buds to Blossom
The garden, as a contemplative study of nature, is the grandest educator. It teaches gardeners humble patience,
spiritual tranquility, close observation, careful watchfulness and curious wonderment. Above all, it nurtures common
sense trust, learning by actually doing and soiled green thumb hands-on experience. Knowledge can neither be cultivated
nor harvested. As the buds unfold, so, too, the open blossoms - their loveliness bursting forth and emanating from within.
All plants are not created equal In fact, horticulturalists label my childhood favorites, pretty dandy-lions, as the
lowest of the low – weeds. Despite being among the undesirables, however, these mini-sunflowers offer choice roots
for wine, crisp leaves for salads. When mowed to a stub, they quickly grow back. Button-size yellow flowers
reflecting sunlight miraculously overnight turn to seedy powder puffs, blown into the air as cottony pinwheels,
flying with or against brisk winds.
Deep in their root, all flowers keep the light, soulfully opening out to natural instincts. Can you force
a bud to blossom according to provident design or seasoned expectations? No, but you can smell its potent
essence, nurture it, water it, give it sunshine and watch it grow. Be careful, however. The moment you try
to control the outcome, it will wither and die.
Landscape engineers plan the look and tilled feel of a prospective enriched soil plot. A single species,
monochromatic garden would be easy to tend and look after, but how boringly uninteresting it would be.
Fortunately, flora comes in all shapes and sizes, all tints and hues. A glorious garden of multiversity
is, by nature, full of sensory variety, individual differences enhancing its beauty, thereby enriching
our visual and aesthetic experience.
A forest cannot exist without trees; a garden without flowers is simply an empty lot. Some seeds or
bulbs need special care and environmentally friendly protection, especially the isolated, endangered
species threatened with extinction. Historically, children with learning, emotional, behavioral
disorders or any type that set them apart were regarded as the prickly weeds of the next generation
rather than the fragrant, velvety roses without thorns they actually are.
Give a weed an inch and it will take a yard, unsightly social outcasts thriving among barren
rocky soil that has never been loosened or fertilized by education. Neglected, thorny push-outs
are merely unloved flowers, masked wild-scented beauties that can never be tamed.
Whoever gathers thistles should expect a few pricks. Every bountiful harvest must be content with
a few noxious spiny survivors thrown in. Pale purple thistles become friends once you get to know
them. If true virtues are discovered, they become herbal medicine cure-all remedies.
Charles Frederickson is a Swedish/American/Thai impassioned observer, daring experimentalist and progressive visionary who has
wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. A member of World Poets
Society, based in Greece, his unique poetic style has been featured in: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Both Sides Now,
Caveat Lector, Contemporary American Voices, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Decanto, ESC!, Feelings of the Heart, Flutter Magazine,
Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, International Poet, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Peace
Not War Japan, Planet Authority, Poetics, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poetry Stop, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, T-Zero,
Ygdrasil, Ya’Sou! and Zafusy.
Email: Charles Frederickson
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