The big picture
When his pyramidal gardening model was up-ended, MICHAEL McCOY didn’t let the grass – unlike the weeds – grow under his feet
At the risk of revealing that I’m a chronic classification nerd, I’m very aware that when I head out into the garden, the task at hand always falls into one of three categories.
First, a heap of what we do in the garden from day to day is simple maintenance. In my system, this category contains all those repetitive tasks that just bring the garden back to a tidy default position – jobs that might simply be considered ‘grooming’. Stuff like weeding, raking, sweeping, and trimming plants and lawns along path edges. These are the jobs you’re likely to tackle if you’ve got only 10 minutes, or an hour, to spend, or if you haven’t spent any time in the garden for ages. They’re often relatively quick, give you a lot of bang for your buck, and require little knowledge or skill.
Next in my classification system (this is just what happens when your training is in science, okay?) is management. This includes all those tasks that are going to keep your garden looking good in perpetuity, like annual or biannual hedge trimming, the pruning of trees and shrubs for shape or fruit or flower maximisation, and the moving or removing of major plant elements
in your garden. Management jobs like these usually only get addressed when you have at least a few hours to spare, and have most of the aforesaid maintenance tasks under control. They’re also much more demanding of specific horticultural knowledge, and often where non-gardeners, or beginner gardeners, lack or lose confidence.
Into the final category go all the projects. These are purely optional tasks that will (hopefully) bring about measurable improvement in the default position. For me, the current project list includes two decks, zones of paving, and the replacement of timber path edging with old red bricks. None of these tasks gets a look-in unless I see a string of free days ahead. These tend to be the jobs that require the most specific (and often non-gardening) skills to complete, and (at least around here) can persist on the
‘to do’ list for years.
The recent social restrictions saw me move up ‘the McCoy Pyramid’ if you like. There are always loads of jobs at the maintenance level, tapering off to far fewer projects at the apex.
But within the first few weeks of lockdown, maintenance morphed into management, and
I’m now firmly in the project zone.
The only trouble is, once I’m there, it’s hard to step out of it. So while I’m blissfully drilling countersunk holes into decking timber, the weeds continue to grow unheeded.
Michael blogs at thegardenist.com.au