Just back from the garden after l½-hr work (my absolute limit) trimming the ivy and other ill-defined tasks. I need to work off my resentment, so here’s a list of horticultural ineluctables.(1) Why is it that how ever many implements you take out of the shed, you always need another? And then another?
(2) Gardener’s World is like watching sado-masochistic porn when you get the heeby-jeebies over a pin-prick. There are people who seem to relish digging. Mind you, the earth they dig is remarkably free from rocks, roots and compressed density.
(3) Trimming ivy doesn’t sound much. What’s a pain is hooking out the cuttings without wrecking the contents of the flower bed.
(4) “But you enjoy the garden when it’s full of colour,” says my wife. Cruelly I point out that she enjoys using her well-honed teeth but finds it difficult to remain philosophical while the dental hygienist goes a’scritching.
(5) A garden creeps up on you like a mugger. Something that didn’t need doing this morning, suddenly requires attention now you’ve got a belly-full of lunch.
(6) Poets rhapsodise about gardens. But can you imagine Dylan Thomas doing topiary? One Plutarch doesn’t foretell a flock of horticultural rhymesters.
OK, I’m purged. Now for a chapter or two of Walter Pater.
5 comments:
Though I know I should tread lightly here, I have had for a long time a gardening bag with pockets on the outside. This contains everything that I am likely to need, hoes, rakes spades and forks excluded, but you don't as a rule forget to take those with you.
I think trimming ivy is one of those jobs designed to make you wonder about the rumors abounding regarding the joy of gardening. Clearly you need an antidote - raking stones into nice patterns? Dead heading a small bush of flowers? What's your favorite gardening chore?
I appreciate the psychotherapeutic outreach I am being offered. Nearly 24 hours later I am now calmer and I shall be taking my wife for lunch to the Manoir aux Quat' Saisons as an act of contrition for No. 4 above.
Plutarch: It is in fact things like forks and hoes I forget. The shed is only 10 m away from the garden's furthest extremity; my complaint was born out of sheer irritation (and some despair) not out of a legitimate burden.
Julia: My favourite gardening chore? Carrying a bottle of chilled white wine, cooler and two glasses down to the table on the small patio in the corner.
There should be somekind of "virtual" garden. They had something similar on the programme "Dragon's Den" where a large screen was covered with a picture of a tranquil view. This was then moved to be in front of any window to please the eye. No need for weed pulling. Of course it was terribly naff and rejected as an awful idea but with the right software surely there could be a projected image?
Anyway - relaxation after such a traumatic time should come from a peacful game of solitaire - virtual version of course (which is one of the greatest creations of all time...)
I dig as directed in the local clay. Another fatigue detail, yes;it gets me outside. Gardening is my wife's hobby, a brutal one, pulling up and thinning out.
As to retracing one's steps for forgotten tools, o yeah. Eats up a lot of time.
Post a Comment