Wednesday 18 August 2010

How it all began.

Sat in a pub the other day with friends I found myself at a slight disadvantage. You see the topics of conversation tended to flow along what you might call stereotypical man talk i.e. drinking, woman and football, none of which I have to admit to knowing a huge amount about. When asked my view on the state of the premiership I have to admit I was rather lost for words so took the only route I felt I could and started discussing the state of the pitches.
I've only two strong viewpoints when it comes to football, one is how can you support your local team when it's full of non locals? Whilst the other is the uniformity of pitch quality. Now I'd be one of the first to admit that the job the greenkeepers do is superb and that pitches in most football grounds are of the finest quality (not including the ones you find public parks and smaller football clubs). My issue with this is that they're too good and along with the constant removal and transfer of players has made the game into an equally uniformed quality.
However I will save my rants on turf, mowing, grass and all that comes with it for a later blog, what actualy made me take notice is how plants and gardening really have permeated so fully into my life.
I do of course have other interests, currently my reading pile contains a selection of quantum theory books which I'm slowly absorbing but even there I could probably turn it round to plant life again. So this got me thinking, where did this love of gardening come from?

As far back as I can remember I'd enjoyed time out in my parents garden, there was a good sized back and tidy little front, there where always trees to climb, dens to make and a fair sized lawn to mess about on. It was the best playground I could have hope for growing up and there are photos of me all the way to when I was a toddler enjoying the delights of being in nature (this often included being caked in mud). My guess is that this is probably much the same for most children, I also remember collecting cacti but once again this seems a perfectly normal boy thing to do, so when did it change from simple child like wonder to the delight and curiosity of gardening?
My first what I would call real gardening experience would have been tending the rockery (a sadly frowned on out dated part of most gardens now). I got to weed and trim back the various plants, spread gravel over any exposed soil and water when the summers got too dry, I learnt my first plant names on that rockery (Sedums and Sempervivums mostly). Now admittedly part of this might have simply been a cunning way my parents found to distract me and keep me reasonably quiet but it also provided me with hours of enjoyment and the feeling of actually having done something to be proud of.
I soon moved from the rockery to pottering round the rest of the garden, mowing the lawn and other general jobs, though never for once consider it as a way of life, for a long time gardening was what you did in your spare time, a way of unwinding after work.

It wasn't until the fateful year of 1998 when I was failing at business school in spectacular fashion, I was lucky enough to meet up with my uncle for a quick bite to eat some days. He'd always had a fantastic garden and was a joy to be around, a true gardener who'd learnt from simple trial and error and years of pottering, at the time he had a normal day job and the garden was simply somewhere he went after work and at the weekends. I could see how much he enjoyed it and how wonderful a place it was (I still aspire to be as good as him one day), it was during one of these lunchs that he mentioned the possibility of gardening for a living and to do what I wanted to do rather than what I thought I should do.
So in the end of my final year at the business school I enrolled in a horticultural college, began a two year apprenticeship at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and entered the world of the professional gardener. Twelve years later I'm still loving it and other than a few detours on the way have lived and breathed plants ever since, the years since 98 have had a huge impact not only on what I do but also on who I am; but that's another story for another time.

1 comment:

  1. A pleasure to read your reflective and lyrical posts and to know the seeds of your gardening inspiration.

    Laura

    p.s. All good wishes for the imminent arrival of your baby girl

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