The end of July is the time of year when I begin to question the gardener’s conceit that plant life can be arranged and ordered to serve a personal aesthetic. I have seen gardens where this appears to be the case, but they are the illusions of master gardeners working in the privileged realms of botanical sorcery.  As this fevered July expires in the sere arms of August, our mortal gardens have taken on a feral look of desperation as purslane serpents coil at their feet, and beetles batter their blossomed brows.

We go through the motions of weeding, watering, trimming up the tattered trailers of plants bent on mischief, but Kate and I are already telling each other that we’ll do better next year. There is an air of surrender in our work. But in surrendering ourselves to a hot summer’s cruel indifference to our efforts to bring some refinement to our largely untamed yard, we have found some consolation on the wild side.

Without the benefit of gardeners – master, or otherwise – the summer scene has arranged and ordered itself into beautiful displays of wildflowers: red and white clovers, roadside chicory and, outdoing everything else, … Queen Anne’s Lace.

The shy catbird gave up the comforts of his birch-leaf lair for some uncharacteristic exposure atop a sun-baked stone wall – a perch that afforded him a better view of the low-bush blueberries Kate and I planted in a new dooryard garden this year. (Bird thought: So many berries, and so few opportunities for pillage unhindered by the proprietary dog, or the man waving arms.) The catbird gave its mewling squawk of approval and launched his raid. I ran out from the kitchen, waving my arms.

It’s berry season, and there is plenty of contention over the spoils of fruiting plants.  It’s war, and as always, the victors in this particular war are the plants.

The fruit lovers in the animal kingdom, ranging the least wisp of a wren to the earth-thudding elephant have been led by the palate down the evolutionary path by plants with a critical interest in seed dispersal. Every fruit is a conveyance system wherein a seed rides in its own lunch bucket of nutrients and sweet calories. It is more than happy to share the bounty with those birds and beasts willing to give it a ride to some far-flung ground where it won’t compete for sun and sustenance with its immediate ancestors. Often the seed is planted at its destination with a generous dose of contributed fertilizer.