As a people genetically and spiritually descended from the English, we Americans love nature.  The United States is a land known for its natural splendor and beauty, and our entire history is one of constantly encountering, subduing, conquering, and/or making our peace with nature.  Frederick Jackson Turner in his famous “Frontier Thesis” argued that our young nation’s constant struggle against nature—the frontier—reinvigorated our democratic and republican spirit and institutions, as we constantly adapted concepts like liberty and constitutionalism to new, often hostile environments.

Yet we retain something of the (perhaps naïve) English notion of nature as fundamentally benign, a bounteous garden for our enjoyment and leisure, not to mention our sustenance.  We imagine rolling hills of lush greenery, absent of any nasty critters or conditions that might interrupt our bucolic stroll through the countryside.  Our conception of nature is thoroughly Romantic at times, feeling more like Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony than Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (although, to be fair, both feature massive thunderstorms!).

Of course, we Americans also know something our Anglo-Scottish-Irish friends don’t:  nature is a b*tch.

Don’t get me wrong—I love the old girl.  There’s nothing quite like tramping through mud and hiking up mountains.  But it’s a love-hate relationship, one that involves appreciation of her beauty while seeking to conquer her—or, at best, avoid her constant encroachments (is it any wonder that we depict nature as a woman?).

Anyone who has lived in a sub-tropical or hotter climate understands the concept.  Not only is there the intense heat and humidity, but what those things bring.  Heat and moisture mean all manner of crawling things awaken from whatever dark, eldritch slumber they indulge in to survive the cold of winter, a mere blink of time before they resume their scratchy, itchy reign.

Mosquitos are perhaps the worst of nature’s minions.  At best, their bites cause annoying itching; at worst, they spread disease.  Colonial settlers at Jamestown struggled mightily against the malarial swamps of Tidewater Virginia.  At least we have air-conditioning!

There are snakes, too.  Most snakes are harmless, even beneficial:  they prey on mice and other rodents, and keep the insect population—always exploding—in check.  But there are the venomous variety, the rattlesnakes, copperheads, and water moccasins.  They mostly keep to themselves, but every Southern knows of someone who has found a rattler slumbering in their driveway.  One local friend of mine even found a baby rattler in her backyard last summer, mere feet from her small children.  A colleague at my school found a rattlesnake in a football helmet one summer.

Even the plants are wicked.  Poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac:  all lurking, waiting for the unsuspecting woodlands explorer to make incidental contact with their deadly leaves.  Remember the old warning:  “leaves of three, let it be; leaves of four, eat some more!”  Or heed the warning of The Coasters:

Or, if you prefer, consider the deadly wiles of Uma Thurman in the role of the scratchy plant:

What doesn’t kill us—or, in the case of Uma Thurman, seduce us with otherworldly beauty—makes us stronger.  Contending with nature strengthens us, and tests our limits as people.

It also deepens our appreciation of it.  If nature were a pushover, we’d run roughshod over her.  Instead, she puts up a fight, so when we come to terms with her, we value her even more.

There’s also a profound joy in doing our little bit to help nature flourish.  Besides the evil insects and sneaky snakes, we can do our bit to enhance her beauty—and even use her wiles against her more toxic manifestations.

The best way to do so is through gardening.  Gardening is our little bit to add beauty and grace to the wildness of nature unleashed.  It’s also both a symbol and practical application of liberty and self-sufficiency.  Sure, few people are feeding themselves exclusively from their summer vegetable patch, but those that have ever grown their own food, or even just flowers, know how satisfying and fulfilling it is.

The best treatment I’ve seen of gardening is from YouTuber Empire of the Mind, in his The Garden of Liberty series.  The first video gives a wonderful introduction to the importance of gardening in the thought of the Founding generation:

Of course, this pithy little essay of mine merely scratches the surface.  I’m also salty about nature because, well, it’s the high summer here in South Carolina, and all the perils mentioned above are keeping me inside.  Lately, it feels like walking outside is like visiting the surface of Venus, just with far less suffocating air pressure (although it’s still pretty suffocating, not just at Venusian levels).  My mudroom is like the airlock between the planetary survival habitat and the dangerous gasses outside (notwithstanding the dangerous gasses Murphy emits throughout the day).

Ask me again when it’s November.  Then maybe I’ll venture outside.