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It can be said that the closer your proximity to a subject, the less objective you are, & true to form it is only recently that I have come to realise a major home truth. It occurred to me that there are many people, in fact probably the majority of those who leaf through Sussex Life every month, who don’t give a fig (if you’ll pardon the horticultural pun) about gardens. It was dear Alan Titchmarsh, who has been leading novice gardeners gently by the hand in his most recent ‘Back to Basics’ garden programme, that set me wondering… How did I come to be a gardener…? Why should anyone want to garden…?
Personally, gardening came to me slowly. As a 19 year old at a loose end, & with nothing much on the horizon, a close friend with a garden business asked me to help him replant a client’s garden. I started out of boredom as much as anything else, & waited for ‘something better’ to come along… & you know… nothing better ever did. Twenty one years later & I’m designing gardens, building gardens, writing about gardens & teaching other people about gardens… Yes, the bug has bitten deep. Often when I’m at a client interview, & we’re in the ‘If I had a pound for every time…’ territory, I hear the words “I don’t have much to do with the garden…”. Yet when the garden is in place & looking beautiful the same client will be telling me how they are never out of the garden, & it is the place they love to unwind. Why? I think that it is a combination of reason’s, but certainly the two major contributors are opportunity & (pardon the bluntness) ignorance. Most people who don’t care much for gardens just haven’t experienced a good garden. They stare out at the acres of lawn to be cut & scrubby herbaceous that became overgrown years ago when Old Mr Wotsisname stopped coming & actively hate their gardens. All it has become is a neverending set of tasks with little or no satisfaction or results to appreciate. A good well-planned garden is a thing of beauty with effort rewarded with lush displays of plants, a lawn that looks mown, not cut, & spaces to relax & enjoy the fruits (literally) of your labour. Another ‘If I had a pound for every time…’ phrase is “It must be low maintenance…” & I always reply that having never been asked to design a high maintenance garden this is the usual starting point for any design. A good garden is as much work as you want it to be, above the general maintenance tasks. Dear Mr Titchmarsh can scare the uninitiated by constantly digging over clay soil or turfing out his manure heap on Gardeners World. You do get out what you put in, but a decent garden can be kept by weeding before the weeds take hold, pruning & mowing at the right time, & feeding your plants with the correct fertiliser in the right season. The bigger the garden the more work is required… Simple. So, if you can’t stand gardens, why start gardening. Well, it may be that you haven’t seen the type of garden that appeals. Some people think a garden is lawn with a requisite number of rose beds. Others think that you can’t have a garden without a green house. Here’s a list to start you off. The grass garden, the bog garden, the oriental garden, the wildlife garden, the meadow garden, the new perennial garden, the sub tropical garden, the seaside garden, the contemporary garden, the chic garden, the colour garden, the formal garden, the children’s garden, the art garden, the forest garden, the rock garden, the ericaceous garden, the winter garden etc…etc…etc… All these types of garden have at least one large book written about them & there are many more. Gardening, we are told by experts, is good for you. Moderate exercise, time in the open air, & a relaxing environment (until the slugs start chewing your Hostas to pieces anyway) are all part of the gardening canon. Not everyone is a born gardener but many come to love it, as I have (though a historic piece of 8mm ciné film has come to light showing me avidly digging up my parents garden at the age of two) & there is always something new to inspire & interest you. Like any hobby, gardening has its advocates, like me, & it’s detractors, but maybe its like me & skiing, everyone tells me how great it is, & I want to believe them, but somehow I just cant see it. But then again…I haven’t got an alp outside my house, I’ve got a garden… |
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