Design: Binary Thinking vs. Jungle Thinking

At the front end of having a garden, finally, after college graduation, not counting the garden whispering decades prior, from birth to 22 years old, I knew if I loved a plant, it was the right plant to acquire and put into my garden.
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I was so happy, get plant, put into garden, next please !  Worse than a Labrador chasing a stick.  Much worse.  Growing up with a Texas'tude, making it my own, Tara'tude, works in many/most situations, total fail in tiny amount of others.  But that tiny amount, a mushroom cloud, Fail.
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Binary thinking did not create a beautiful garden.  How could Tara'tude know it had approached a multi-layered nuance of perfection, eons old?
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Binary thinking?  If I think a plant is fabulous, it will make my garden fabulous.  Binary thinking, closed loop, fiasco in the making.  "If you want to understand how a lion hunts you don't go to the zoo, you go to the jungle."  David Sable.  Binary thinking, about creating the garden of your dreams, literally what you've saved to Pinterest, keeps you at the zoo.  So long as you are in the zoo, those who've marched on, to the jungle, see.  Your mushroom cloud isn't the elephant in the room to us.
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No worries, the jungle also taught us to be matriarchs.  We benevolently await, nurture, and enjoy anyone leaving the zoo, walking into the jungle.  If you've read this far, welcome to the jungle.  "No truly great thinker is siloed in a small territory."  
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Here's what I know, too, about gardens & binary thinking.  Remember, these thought processes were my mushroom cloud, until I saw exactly where to enter the jungle.
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Taken from, Creating a Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck, "You don't believe in growth, you believe in right and wrong and any suggestion of change or adaptation is considered a criticism.  Challenges or obstacles tend to make you angry and defensive."  "Blame is a big part of the fixed mindset."  And, oh my, didn't all those pretty gardens cost a lot to create?  That was my excuse, my blame, not enough $$$.
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Blessedly I wanted a beautiful garden more than I wanted to be right.  Providence entered, 1985, when I bought myself a birthday present.  A garden book.  Little knowing , English Cottage Gardens, by Ethne Clarke, was my portal into the jungle.  Pics and writing devoured in a long afternoon, the epiphany arrived before sunset.  Gardens are not about plants, Gardens are about backdrop.  The house, the country side, your neighbor's air-conditioner.  At those points you enter the jungle.
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Great Dixter, below, is great backdrop.  Same garden, below, would not be so wonderful at a mid-century brick ranchburger, worse, in winter.  In winter, below, historical oast houses take the stage, a ranchburger, no.  Enter the jungle.  What do you need to do to create your mid-century brick ranchburger into a stunning backdrop?  Color, light fixtures, window treatments & views into them from the garden, where to place proper evergreens for beauty in February, create flow with paths and lawn, solve every slope issue, put focal points on axis from inside the house, perhaps a new front door, moving the foundation hedge out from the base of the house, create 3-D elements on the flat walls, for starters.  Jungle thinking !    


Pic, above, here.



Pic, above, here.

Both Great Dixter garden rooms, above/below, would be a mushroom cloud fail at most USA subdivision homes, in a front yard.  All those pretty flowers, above/below, are beautiful 2-4 weeks/year, many months of the year they are herbaceous, disappearing.  Worse, these garden rooms are high maintenance, needing, dead-heading, dividing, weeding, all for a measly 2 weeks of glory?  Not a viable option for most.  Except for me during my days living/thinking in the zoo.  Sure, I was the perennials queen, planted them with exuberance, got on the board of the Georgia Perennial Plant Association, yet seeing my garden, it was not fabulous.  Every perennial above/below you can be sure I've had.
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Once in the jungle I knew, for me & my time/money, no more perennials, only flowering shrubs, trees, groundcovers, bulbs and my house as backdrop.


Pic, above, here.
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My journey from binary thinking in a silo, to fully fledged member of the jungle, is never dull, nor stops.  More, it has brought an authenticity, an ability to traverse worlds within worlds.  An abiding joy, a grace and atonement.  "We're not particularly well integrated.  One of the curiosities can be the differences, rather than the similarities, between people walking down the street--differences in expectation and privilege, in wealth and opportunity.  It's not tension or aggression, but a kind of guarded indifference.  We coexist rather than create communities."  Anthony Minghella.  'The more we go inward the more we outwardly connect', don't be afraid of the jungle.  You'll discover it to be the most incredible community.  Scare yourself, what it gives in return is beyond measure.  The pearl of great price.  Selfishly, when you do, I want to see your garden, and know your journey.  Your mushroom cloud fails too.  
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Adore the laughter with others in the jungle, sharing their fails !
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Ok, I'll give you 1 particular sentence from a friend's journey in the jungle. "I had no car after the divorce so worked at the dry cleaners nearby, I could walk to work, one morning opening the drive through window, there were 3 cars already waiting, each with a man, I was dating all 3.   Yep, the story gets better.  In addition to money issues, she has cronic health issues.  But, oh my, you should see her garden.  Through it all, you should see her garden.