Plant what wants to grow...

My guess is that every gardener goes through developmental stages. First - the passion and wonder of every new plant discovery, and the absolute delight at the first bud. Planting everything in sight, in an orgy of enthusiasm. Later, the challenge of what to do with all that growth, inevitably more than you expected, and also what to do with all that decay, which follows as the night the day. Next perhaps is the question of where to put the things you've managed to bring along, and how to take care of them. Do you want disciplined order or flowery chaos? Once you get that more or less settled, a process which takes years, comes the challenge of how to shrink it all, as you realize you can't do everything you did before, say, 60. You are left wondering what a garden for your old age might be, and how to get there from here.

I've discovered at least a partial answer in Peter Thompson's book the self-sustaining garden. He writes about what he calls matrix planting, and says,

'The twin aims of matrix planting appear to be so simple I hesitate to write them down:

Encourage the plants you do want

Discourage the plants you do not want'

I've simplified this into my new personal mantra, 'Plant what wants to grow.' Of course some things want to grow TOO MUCH, and you have to restrain them, but overall if things want to grow you can put them with others that also want to grow, and have a relatively easy-care garden. In this Mediterranean climate that means mostly without much water in the summer. The plant order I just sent off to Big Dipper Farm includes oenothera, lavender, kniphofia, and an achillea (Paprika) which is a cultivar of our native achillea, which I hope will like it here. All of these things are supposed to be relatively drought-tolerant and rabbit-proof, although I suppose nothing is really completely out of the rabbit diet. These things are not for my (relatively) formal garden, Pan's Garden, but rather for banks and beds in the various lower gardens (Peter's Garden, the Path Garden.)

In the fall, this combination of euphorbia, rosemary, and pear tree blazes by the path to the pool, having had no water or care whatsoever.