Poppycock in the garden

Jill Severn portrait

The latest silly gardening trend is called “chaos gardening.” Like many silly things, it started on TikTok. The idea is closely related to the “guerilla gardening” pamphlet a few years ago that called on all good anarchists to make seed bombs and lob them into vacant lots.

Chaos gardening calls on people to mix up different kinds of seeds in a bowl and scatter them around, and let nature do the rest.

Both wildly oversell their tissue-thin ideas. The anarchists aimed to beautify the world, and grow free food for “the people.” The chaos gardeners similarly claim that just throwing seeds around will produce abundant crops.

One Tik-Tok chaos gardener smiles sweetly and says that with this method, “there are no rules, just vibes.” But another laments that the good vibes are easily ruined; she says “Just be sure to tell your partner where you planted your chaos-ness, because when they mow over it, it’s devastating.”

These oddball garden strategies have their roots in the long-running quest to eliminate all or most of the work of gardening. The late English garden writer Christopher Lloyd noted that in his lifetime, that quest had gone from seeking “labor-saving” tools and methods to a newer promise of “low maintenance” gardening, which, Lloyd wryly remarked “removed any reference to labor.”

But successful gardening involves labor, the self-discipline to keep up with growing plants, and the inclination to find pleasure in doing it. It’s common sense to find ways to do it the easiest way possible, but efficiency is not the primary goal; a productive and beautiful garden – and the satisfaction of tending it – are the goals.

So it’s both remarkable and cringe-worthy to see goofy ideas like chaos gardening gain traction in Better Homes and Gardens, which breezily and uncritically endorses it, calling it a “fun, carefree way to garden.” They even report that the British Royal Horticulture Society gave the trend an honorable mention in last year’s garden show.

If Christopher Lloyd read that article, he’d certainly groan when he got to this line: “This type of gardening is much more low-maintenance than regular gardening.”

Fortunately, there is some pushback against chaos gardening from writers like Elizabeth Licata in an eclectic online publication called Garden Rant. She notes that mainstream garden publications like Better Homes and Gardens can’t resist placing some rules on chaos gardening, like soil preparation, considering sunlight/shade choices, and other sensible advice. “Come on people! You’re taking the chaos out!” she writes. In the purely chaotic garden, she says, “Pick your definition, but ‘complete disorder and confusion’ is as accurate as any.”

Magazines like Better Homes and Gardens just can’t resist a trend, even if it’s poppycock. Any new garden fashion is fodder for them. And a trend that promises beauty and abundance without work is evidently a siren’s song to many of their readers. We might wait forever for a follow-up article headlined “Well that didn’t work.”

There is a bit of chaos even in the best kept gardens, especially in the fall. And all gardeners find their own comfort level of balancing order and chaos. It’s a continuum.

Tolerance of disorder – or even an affinity for it – is not necessarily a failing; it seems more likely it’s just a fact of human diversity. But it might make some people especially vulnerable to the false promises of chaos gardening.

The most vulnerable will be those who’ve never gardened. Once they have tried chaos gardening and failed, they may not try again. That’s a shame, because the world always needs more gardeners.

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com