A gentle plea for chaos

by Mirabel Osler

"Osler's plea is not so gentle; rather, its opinionated (though never dismissive), bell-clear, wickedly humorous, brilliant--a call for cultivated anarchy in the garden that turns an oxymoron into a sensuous, sensible act. ``Why garden? God knows ... Damn those fine mornings. It's then that guilt seeps in like bad gas, '' groans Osler, one of England's best-known gardeners. Don't buy it for a minute. Her love of gardening is obvious, even if ``a great number of gardening jobs are pure slog.'' And her garden, eclectically wanton as it is, enemy of everything regimented and overly neat, shot through with the native vitality of plants for atmosphere and mystery, brings her to her knees much of the time; untidiness requires work. She wouldn't have it any other way. She likes a rude edge, to blur and enchant, the unruly ``quality that adds an extra sensory dimension.'' She loves hedges, walls, and paths--``the bones of a garden''--as long as they don't rob the garden of its sensuality. Here