A Gardening Tale 
for Child Care People

Peter Powis, former co-editor of Child & Youth Care (South Africa) and now Director of an addiction treatment clinic near Cape Town

In 2037 in a city somewhere in Africa there was a large park full of tropical plants and trees. Although it was unfashionable to grow tropical plants at that time, the city people were nevertheless quite proud of the fact that they had such a park. As long as they didn’t have to grow the plants themselves, they enjoyed strolling through the park among the plants which were not to be seen elsewhere in the city.

In one corner of the park there was a large greenhouse where the seedlings and young shrubs and trees were cared for until they could be planted outside in one of the big gardens. By 2037, the climate of central Africa had changed so much that many tropical plants only survived outdoors if they were first nurtured under controlled conditions. Other plants had adapted to climatic conditions and had therefore been able to survive in the natural environment.

In June 2037, after the resignation of two gardeners, the park manager had to start looking for replacements. As very few people liked working with special plants, it was difficult to find the right people for those posts. Most people grew plants that grew in the natural environment and could not be bothered with plants that needed special attention.

Nevertheless, six people responded to the job advertisement in the newspaper. Two of the applicants had exactly the right experience and qualifications for the job. Unfortunately, however, they couldn’t afford to work for the low salaries which were being offered. Two other applicants mumbled something about being “fond of plants”, but were clearly unreliable people and were therefore not considered suitable. Of the remaining two applicants, one (Freddie) seemed to have had some appropriate experience and showed a real understanding of plants in general. He was employed without further ado. Although the manager wasn’t sure about the other applicant (Rick), he needed another gardener quickly and despite his misgivings, he employed him.

Fred and Rick settled down to their new jobs and you wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss. However, Freddie, who had a natural feel for working with plants, was a bit concerned about some of the things he saw. For example, he noticed that many of the seedlings and young plants which came into the greenhouse never grew enough to be planted in the gardens outside. Many of these young plants were simply thrown into big black bags and taken off to the rubbish dump outside the city. As he drove past the rubbish dumps on his way home, it impressed him to see that some of these plants had somehow found their way out of the bags and taken root in the soil around the rubbish dumps. They even seemed to be growing far better there than in the greenhouse.

Freddie also noticed that Rick was becoming very frustrated. In fact poor old Rick wasn’t coping at all. He had previously been a technical inspector on a motor car production line. There his job was very clear — he had to test certain components of the vehicle and if they were not functioning according to technical specifications, he reported the fault and made sure that it was rectified. The plants, however, did not function according to man-made specifications, and he couldn’t monitor their growth by using mechanical instruments. Rick nevertheless applied his technical logic to his new job — he looked for obvious problems with the plants and when there were problems, he treated the plants by pouring on extra water, fertilizer and compost. Those plants which didn’t show obvious problems he simply watered and then left them alone. As it happened, the additional water, fertilizer and compost made some of the problem plants perk up their leaves and develop new bright green shoots in the place of their old yellowing leaves. This greatly encouraged Rick. On the other hand, other plants reacted by getting worse and worse.

Freddie noticed a whole table full of very sick-looking plants being given yet another dose of water, fertilizer and compost. They looked as though very soon they’d get the “black bag” treatment. He called Rick aside and said “ Rick, these plants are getting too much water and they don’t like all that fertilizer and compost. They like dryish, sandy soil.” Rick was rather taken aback when he realised that all his efforts had been making the plants worse instead of better. Nevertheless, he appreciated Freddie’s advice and wished that he knew more about plants.

“What he sort of understood was basically this: that each plant (and every kind of plant) is unique, and that therefore what stimulates one plant’s growth may destroy another plant.”

He took Freddie to another table of plants whose leaves were dry and shrivelled up, despite all his efforts.

“What have you been doing here!” Freddie asked.

“The same as with that other lot. I’ve given them water and lots of compost and fertilizer” said Rick.

Looking closely at the plants Freddie said, “Let me tell you about these plants. If you have a good look at these leaves you’ll see very tiny spots. That’s a fungus and it means that you need to spray or dust these leaves with a fungicide. Secondly, these plants aren’t getting enough sun they shouldn’t even be in the greenhouse — they need hot, direct sun and cooler air at night.”
Freddie, who had an almost poetic way of talking about plants, went on to explain a whole lot of things, only some of which Rick’s technical mind understood. What he sort of understood was basically this: that each plant (and every kind of plant) is unique, and that therefore what stimulates one plant’s growth may destroy another plant.

Freddie said something about each plant having its own “spirit” which you could only get to know by watching very closely how it responded to the way you treated it. You had to take time to study shape, colour and texture of the leaves; you had to watch to see how the shoots developed and you had to feel around in the soil to get an idea of how the roots developed. Plants with thin, hairy spread-out roots needed different treatment to plants with thick, deep roots. Freddie said that he even watched to see how different plants responded to light and shade and changes in temperature. Most plants grew towards light, but he said that there were actually some which couldn’t process bright light and sun. He said that you had to remember this when planting and transplanting them.

Freddie said that it was only when you understood the spirit of plants that you could provide the right conditions for growth. He said some people often ignored the spirit of plants and then gave up on them, thinking that they were “dud plants” — instead of realising that they were simply not receiving the right treatment, or were not planted in the right place. These people would repeatedly plant and pull out plants. They were the kind of people who wanted to grow a ‘delicious monster’ in the hot, sunny daisy bed just because they thought it would look good there.

Freddie said that it was amazing how people carried on doing the same things over and over again, even when those things didn’t work.

Rick felt a bit stupid but he also felt encouraged because he now had more ideas about how to deal with plants. When Rick went to show Freddie some “weeds”, Freddie said something about there being very few real weeds.

“Sure, there’ll always be some weeds” he said. “but people often call beautiful plants weeds just because they’re growing in an inconvenient place — and don’t ever tell a tortoise that a dandelion is a weed!” he added.

Freddie carried on talking for quite a while, but Rick couldn’t absorb much more. The park manager was rather surprised to hear that some of the plants in the greenhouse should never have been placed there, but after consulting his gardening books he gave permission for them to be planted outside. Freddie and Rick even discovered some non-tropical plants in various corners of the greenhouse, and these were taken and planted in the streets outside the park.

When Rick arrived home after work that night, he couldn’t help but notice his own garden. He seemed to see it very differently to the way he’d seen it before. He was more curious about it and went and found some gardening books which he’d hardly read before. He realised that there were no short cuts when working with plants, and that his work would be more interesting and yet also more demanding from that point on.

He closed his book and dozed off into a rather unsettling dream about thousands of plants floating into the greenhouse and floating out all over the place in haphazard fashion. He stood watching helplessly, waiting in vain for the park manager or somebody to take charge and do something. After what seemed like ages, he noticed that an unfamiliar figure arrived who was somehow able to control the flow of plants. Suddenly the park manager and a number of gardeners appeared including Freddie. The unfamiliar figure stopped all the plants before they could float into the greenhouse. He then allowed some of the plants to go inside where the park manager channelled them to one of the gardeners who deftly planted them in neat beds. Other plants were taken by other gardeners and planted in the park, while others were taken outside by gardeners who ran like lightning and planted them all over the city. 

As this dream faded away, Rick drifted into a deeper, more restful sleep.