The Key To Diversity: Opposites Attract
Opposites Attract
The most important aspect of any ecosystem is diversity. It’s Not convenience, or beauty, or even difference; it’s systems that blend gradually and whose existence makes another system thrive until that system is ready to return the favor. Reflect on that. Mezzacello is built around an 18 month growing season. 18 moths is an important marker. It’s two winters and to paraphrase George R. R. Martin, “Winter is ALWAYS coming.”
In The gallery above you can see the late summer early fall images of Mezzacello and the East facing formal gardens. They were designed for beauty, peace, diversity, ease of upkeep, interest to pollinators and easily gathered biomass. At the end of their season they are cut, gathered, processed, composted, treated, amended and returned. In that process they grow soil, microclimates, feed microbiomes and create soil. Then the bio products are returned to those gardens from the nitrogen setting parts of Mezzacello to the west. There is precious little that is brought in from the outside. The sun, the soil, the microclimates and microbiomes as well as the diverse enclosed ecosystems do all of the heavy lifting here.
The humans are just traffic police and guides. Yes, we produce biomass and resources for this garden. But it is the billions of other life forms that turn our systems into ecosystems. One of the side benefits of the formal gardens is peace. Beauty is almost always peaceful. That is important in life. If you find beauty in things that lack grace, charm and kindness, reflect. There is most definitely a disturbance in the force — Life is never really easy. There will be work, dedication, and sacrifice. But there should always be grace and beauty and if you are you are doing it right; there should be Pride.