Reading Alan Titchmarsh's back page article in the latest Gardeners World I was inspired by his tale of a woman asking him what she could do about slugs in her compost heap. Now personally the compost heap is one of the few places I actually want them, chomping away at old tough plant matter and breaking it down to a more compostable nature (I've got my compost heaps down to a two month turnover from start to black crumbly garden gold, but that's another blog story).
This tale did however remind me of the levels that some people will go to in the search of their ideal perfect little garden. I'd be the first to admit to a certain pickyness over some areas (particularly lawns, I do like a neatly clipped and mown lawn) but at least I have know my limits, whereas some of the people I've come across in my years go beyond the norm, let me give you a few examples.
There's one lady I work for, a wonderful client but she does have some rather odd ideas when it comes to what her garden should look like. Over the years of working there I've managed to fill the once relatively plain borders with a reasonable selection of plants, nothing too outlandish but there's certainly a few unusual plants in there. Earlier in the year she came up to me to ask about a new appearance of a tall purple plant at the back, not one of my plantings but it looked really good, however she couldn't decide whether it was a weed or not.
So I asked her if she liked it, trying to explain that if she did then it wasn't technically a weed whereas if she didn't then I'd dig it up and take it home, sadly from her point of view she only wanted it kept if it wasn't a "weed". Trying to explain that a weed is only a plant in the wrong place I ultimately gave up and simply said that it wasn't, thereby keeping it in place and allowing it to naturalise.
I was however struck by this view that all weeds had to be removed from the garden regardless of what they added in appearance or whether she liked them or not.
In an equally bizarre garden experience I was trying to show a friend the intricacies and beauty of an recently exposed ants nest when she asked me if it was possible to remove all the ants from her garden and whilst I was at it worms to as she didn't like them either. I did point out that if I did manage this extraordinary feat then her garden would ultimately die but she still wanted it cleansed of all garden "creepy crawlies".
I've had people wanting their hedges clipped every week to keep them perfectly neat and trim, one lady asked me if I knew where I could get lawn dye to get a uniform green (some councils actually do this, often before a royal visit), I've found myself out early morning sweeping the dew of the lawn, on my hands and knees picking moss out of cracks in the path and generally following insanely minded people trying to achieve the perfect moment and state of garden.
I'm not suggesting we should let the gardens go to a completely natural state but there has to be some balance surely. We don't always need to be gardening, there must be times where we can sit back and simple relax or even just have a general pottering about, gardening shouldn't be a chore it should be a delight, a joy to experience and behold.
In those moments of quiet contemplation whilst meandering around gently gardening we might just find that by finding this relaxed balance we discover that the garden already is perfect and that is was us that needed controlling.
No comments:
Post a Comment