It was a simple graphic I found. The message “Keep Calm and Garden On” was printed in the vintage British-style World War II poster with a watering can on it. I thought it would be a nice image to share on Facebook with the first dominos of COVID-19 beginning to fall with the closing of universities and churches. I pushed post and sent it off into cyberspace.
Within a week, this image had over a thousand shares. I was blown away. I realized there is something about that message. Keeping calm. And, gardening on.
I remember my first semester as a graduate student sitting in a statistics night class on September 29, 2008. Earlier that day, the stock market had crashed, and the class was a flurry with conversations about the dismal news. There was uncertainty about what would happen.
But, being a fledgling horticulture master’s student, I heard discussions about people gardening—accounts of first time planters who had never grown anything in their life suddenly had a plot out back or a few containers on their patio. And, from my attending trade shows, people were talking about the rise of edible gardening.
I remember that like yesterday. That in this time of trouble, people turned to gardening. When people loose so much, they go back to the basics of life. It is hard to visualize an investment portfolio, but one can see plants and food that’s tangible, real, and in reach growing in the backyard.
Here we are yet again with another crisis on our hands. It is very different from the last one, and yet we hear stories of germinating gardening interest and seed companies overwhelmed with orders. A rule of mother nature is that she cannot tolerate bare soil after a disturbance. Perhaps it is a rule of humanity that human nature can’t either in a crisis? We seem to have this pattern as humans. Just like when hardship befalls us and we want to call Mom and Dad or fall into a friend’s arms, in crises we return to the earth.
But, why? I had often heard people speak of this gardening roller coaster, but it was anecdotal. I hadn’t seen good literature on the subject until I sat on a graduate student’s dissertation committee a few years back. In her writing Jheri-Lynn McSwain cited a thesis by Joshua Birky where he made the case that gardening and crises are connected. And, while the below quote focuses on community gardens, I believe that it also holds true of backyards or balconies.
“It can be seen that throughout the history of the U.S. movements, many forms of community gardens have often been looked at as undesirable landforms necessary only in times of great disturbance or social need; they are seen as the refuge of only the poor, homeless and unemployed. These gardens have many times been a common reaction to a societal feeling of panic or desperation when it is believed that life within the city, or the nation as a whole, is being threatened. Yet once the war is over or the unemployment rate decreases, the “normal” faces of urban design take over and the gardens are once again lost until the next disaster arises.
This pattern can be recognized by realizing that each spike of public or governmental interest in community or allotment gardens within the U.S. (and to a large extent with in the U.K.) generally follows a crisis period. Although easily comparable quantitative data for each one of these spikes is not available, studies do suggest that as public and governmental interest in community and allotment gardening increases, so does the number of gardens. Given this information, the histories of both the U.S. and the U.K. and further anecdotal evidence, we can conclude that there have been approximately eight major crises and seven major spikes (within the U.K. and the U.S). These crises and spikes include – two reactions to poor wages and living conditions in 1790s (U.K.); reaction to the swing riots of 1830 (U.K.); reaction to poor conditions and unemployment in the 1890s (U.S.); reaction to World War I (U.S. and U.K.); reaction to the great depression (U.S. and U.K.); reaction to World War II (U.S. and U.K.); and reaction to marginalization, oil shortages and environmental hazards in the 1970s (U.S.). The current movement has been steadily growing since the 1970s with slight reductions during the 1980s due to pulled government funding and support.”
So, there you have it. In hard times we cultivate creation, only to drop our plowshares once life stabilizes. And, then the pattern repeats.
While gardening has become more hip in recent times and I believe less viewed as “undesirable landforms” that is just “refuge of only the poor, homeless, and unemployed” as in times past, there is still something that causes the post-crisis gardening spike to drop once the good times return. Perhaps priorities shift back. Perhaps these people see that gardening has its own issues—deer, rabbits, weeds, fungi, viruses, boar, gophers, flooding, and ultimately plant death—and it’s just as easy to go to the store and buy that head of lettuce. Perhaps people just don’t want to work that hard. Yes, I’m not afraid to say that gardening is work. It is incredibly fun, life fulfilling, and passionate work, but it’s work. There are days that I collapse from having done so much only to get up the next day and go again. And, I’m gardening for fun, not necessarily just for survival!
Or, perhaps we all have a bit of prodigal son in us. Garden does come from the old English geard, meaning fence or enclosure. Back centuries ago, walled gardens were viewed as safe havens from the wild beyond. And, maybe it is just part of our nature to venture out from growing plants for survival when things are well in the world to engage with the lavish trinkets of life only to return home of cultivating the earth when things go bad again.
Whatever the reason, I want to unlink the crisis and the garden. To tear down those fences and make gardening an integral part of life. I believe that is our role as plantspeople. To help those that are just starting. To rear the seedling gardeners and help them stretch towards the light. To encourage and promote and educate and cheer them on. To share plants and to share knowledge, even if it is difficult with social distancing.
This pandemic is a crisis, and I pray, hope, and truly believe that we will make it out of this winter to find a rich and rewarding spring on the other side. But, I don’t want us to forget plants and the life that they gave to all of us while we were struggling, this time or the many times before this crisis.
So, let’s keep calm and garden on. We’ll be here again one day. We might as well keep the practice up.