New Growth Musings

Seeing the new growth on plants instills the gardener with pride. Seeing new growth, like that of the picture on the left, instead lets the gardener breathe a sigh of relief. The picture on the left depicts about a week's new growth on a gooseberry bush I cut down last week. The reason why I say it is rather a sigh of relief than pride is the fact that I personally hold my breath every time I cut down a plant. I never know if it will grow back. This is obviously an irrational fear; a wise gardener will only cut a plant he/she knows will (i) grow back after the cutting and (ii) need to be cut down for the health of the plant. That said, I always dread to cut down my plants.

But this leads me to once again stand in awe in front of nature and her ability to regrow. I have posted last spring about the growth of my fig tree and how this lead me to ponder change and rejuvenation in nature's abundance. This week, after cutting down my gooseberry bushes, I ponder the new growth after this cutting and how we can use some of this in our own lives. That is, life can sometimes "cut" us in ways that make us feel like everything is taken away. But if we give it time, it will regrow, and this regrowth will sometimes be stronger but also healthier. In this post, I will write something akin to philosophical reflection on regrowth and the process of cutting down. These thoughts were inspired by the photographs that I post alongside it. I hope that you find some value in my ponderings and reflections.

Cutting Away Old Growth

Above you can see behind the new growth where I cut the previous stem of this gooseberry bush. Below in the left corner, there is another cut. Sometimes in life, we need to cut away old growth. Like this gooseberry bush that grew very few new leaves and did not produce any new fruit, I needed to cut various things from my life that did not help me grow. Plants need leaves to grow and to produce fruit. When a gooseberry bush grows too old, it uses too much energy to produce woody stems and it tries to grow too big. This leads to weak foliage and even weaker fruit production.

Old Scars Remain Under the New Growth

As with the photograph above, you can see the old base of the stem. It is wounded, in a metaphorical sense, but the green new growth begins to cover it. That is, the old scars remain visible, but they are merely a reminder of why the "pain" was needed. It almost looks like the new growth emerges from the wounds. Metaphorically, one can then say that the wounds were needed for the new growth. This is not always a good thing to experience, but people who grew stronger due to trials and tribulations will tell you most likely that it made them stronger. The cliche, that what does not kill you makes you stronger, can be applied here. From that which caused you pain, new growth will emerge as if it was a prerequisite. Now, can one grow new growth without being cut down? Without going through the pain?

Some Do Not Make It

Before pondering the question above, it needs to be said that not everyone makes this rather violent cutting. The above image attests to that fact. Most of the gooseberry bushes have shown new growth, but this one does not. You can see how dried out the stem is. In life, not everyone will make the pain that requires new growth. It is a painful process. Not everyone is that strong.

Reflections on New Growth: Life-Giving and Life-Taking

Now, one might wonder, does new growth require the painful experience of being cut down? I think so yes. This painful cutting down does not always have to be traumatic in nature. Hardships are not always traumatic. But from some hardship, as the above photograph attests to, can enable fantastic new growth. Flourishing, this new bush will hopefully carry even more fruit! From one cut-down stem, four new ones emerge.

Can too much new growth put strain on the original plant though? In other words, can our own regrowth be too much of a good thing? Or putting it in yet another way, can there be too much emphasis on new growth and in doing so neglect the growth of fruit? These questions cannot yet be answered, only time will tell.

Some of the gooseberry bushes are a bit slower. They show promising signs of growing back, but they lack the speed of the others. I wonder if the slow growers will have more chance of fruiting better fruits? Sometimes, it is not about growing quickly and fast, but taking your time and to build firm foundations. Will the roots of the slow growers go deeper?

Is it not beautiful that the new growth is exactly on the cut of the clippers? Again, emphasizing the weird contradicting idea that the cut was needed for the growth to come from there. This might lead to a weird deterministic view of the world we should rather avoid: only by cutting the bush will it grow like that. Yes, it is true, but making that causal leap is dangerous. Or, maybe I am only overthinking this.

Again, this might lead to a strange form of thinking that requires us to cut the bushes for them to grow. This is essentially true, but the causal jump or causal explanation is wrong. It is not because of the cutting of the clipper that the plant regrows, but rather the will to life (I sound like the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer) that produces the new growth. This will help me answer the question (of if pain is needed for regrowth). No, not in that sense. It is not the pain that causes the new growth. It is rather that there are simply concurrent events, but the causal link is absent. Semantics, semantics, semantics. But is all life not like that? Whilst I talked and thought about semantics, the bugs came in to eat some of the new growth.

All in all, new growth seems magical. See the above photograph of the cut-down bush and the small new green leaf. So vulnerable. Yet, it has a firm foundation. And this leads to an interesting question: why not just sow new seed? I think we can answer this with the already existing root structure that creates a firm foundation. Why rely on chance of the new seedling with unsure roots when you can rely on the old bush and its roots?

Like a fallen giant, the above photograph is a nice rendition of the idea that no one is too big to be cut down. This was one of the larger bushes, evident by the thick stem. In the foreground, a humble new set of leaves emerges.

A Month Of Growing

The above set of photographs and musings are from yesterday. It was almost exactly a week after I cut the gooseberry bushes. I grow a separate set of gooseberry plants for the squirrels and birds. I cut them down on 17 January. It is 17 February today, thus a month exactly. They have grown almost a meter high in a month. Nature's ability to regrow is just amazing and I cannot help to think about using it in my own life.

| A mixture of amaranth and gooseberries |

All of the photographs were taken with my Nikon D300 and Tamron macro-zoom lens. The musings are also mine. I hope that you can gain something from my musings or philosophical reflections. Nature is just amazing, we just need to bend down to appreciate it. Stay safe.