Several years ago I had a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that was the only good fortune I have ever seen. I’m not saying that any of the fortunes were bad, but some made little to no sense, and the others were just generic sayings. The one fortune that I thought had value said this:
“A wise man learns more from fools, than fools from the wise.”
Since the saying speaks of fools and today is April Fool’s Day I thought this fortune cookie might make a timely post. To make it relevant to my blog I’ll relate the fortune to what else? Gardening! In its essence the fortune means that a wise person can learn from other people’s mistakes. It also means that the fool doesn’t listen to the wise man. Now if you correlate that to gardening you realize that a wise gardener learns from observing other gardening mistakes. A pretty simple concept yet it is still very important. By watching what other gardeners do and seeing what doesn’t work or talking to other gardeners about their experiences you can make a mental note (or write one down on paper) so that you will never make the same mistake!
The mistake might be as simple as a combination of plants you don’t like. It could be that a neighbor has planted a bad choice of a tree under power lines. It could be that the plants that looked so pretty at the nursery were really extremely invasive. It could be nearly anything. Learning from mistakes, both ours and other peoples, is essential in improving ourselves as gardeners. Let’s face it mistakes are going to happen, but by learning what we did wrong we can learn to do better!
Do you have a fortune that you would like to share? (I’ll take a check!)
The Pictures in this post have nothing to do with the actual post, they just dress it up a little. The top one is a tulip poplar blooming (The Tennessee State Tree) and the bottom one is an iris from my parent’s yard. We’ve transplanted a couple dozen of them into our yard.
“Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.” ~Mark Twain
Happy April Fool’s Day from sunny California!
Dave, when my husband Don and I moved into our first house, it was on a small 1/4 acre yard that had been neglected many years. That spring we spent our weekends pulling out all kinds of weeds, underbrush and cutting down sickly trees.
There was one particular planting that was so thick, Don told me they were bushwacker weeds so I attacked them with all my might, removing every last trace of them. Later that spring a co-worker offered me some Iris for my garden. I was so thrilled. Imagine my chagrin when she handed me a bag full of bushwacker weeds.
To this day I wonder what color those Iris were and I also learned not to listen to Don when it came to plant identification.
I would do well to learn from my own naivety and inexperience. When my [ex-]husband and I built a new home almost 20 years ago, I was so excited to do some landscaping. I planted an assortment of cedar trees and low growing evergreens along the front of a covered veranda. Long story short, a few years later, the pyramid cedars had to be sharply sheered off at the roof overhang, the two glorious rhododendrons were being choked out by fiercely mean juniper shrubs and, of course, all being acid loving plants, they hated being that close to the cement foundation. Ah yes, live and learn.
Having said that, I have an entire journal of wonderful ideas and plants that I’ve gleaned from the blogs of gardeners such as yourself. I’ve learned so much from the Blotanical community.
Happy April Fool’s Day. Great post.
Someone once told me a funny thing about fortune cookie fortunes. Whatever it says add to the end-in bed. I have never looked at the fortunes the same since.
The best fortune you got was the one that said “Daughter” while I was pregnant with Grace. 🙂
Dave,
You always make me think!
We moved into this house 20+ yrs ago and the mistake I made was not removing all the Vinca major and minor…it has only gotten worse. At the time I thought it a pretty flowering plant…it is a plant choking thug, with a pretty blue flower!
Gail
Best fortune: right after I started my own suburban chicken flock I got one that said “It’s better to have a hen tomorrow than an egg today.”
I will also share one of my many, many gardening mistakes. My mother asked for help covering a large bare patch near a lattice-covered area. My brilliant solution: Baltic ivy, which will still be here with the cockroaches after all other life on earth ceases.
Lin,
That’s a great quote! Thanks for visiting from California!
Melanie,
Thanks for sharing the iris story! We all make mistakes, I hope you forgave you husband!
Nancy,
I think many people have done that, planting too close to something. I did that with a willow. It probably would have been OK but I moved it before it could become a problem.
Tina,
I think I’ll stay away from that one!
Jenny,
It did come in a fortune cookie, but that wasn’t the fortune. that was the learning Chinese part on the back of the fortune, so my fortune comment can remain in tact! But having the cookie tell us that we were having a girl was very special!
Gail,
I’ve heard lots of people say similar thought about vinca. I’ve thought about it for some slope areas, but I think I’ll steer clear.
Jen-o,
Ivy is so nice to look at its really too bad it is so aggressive! A very ironic fortune! Fresh eggs can’t be beat. We recently had a dozen from a lady my wife works with and they were some of the best eggs we’ve ever had. They beat the store bought eggs any day.