Garden view
Forget heroic deeds on track and field, it’s tying in that really hones your glutes, says Alex Mitchell
We need a gardening Olympics, says Alex Mitchell
As the starting gun fires on the Olympic Games in Tokyo this July, let us remember those sporting endeavours that are not celebrated with medals.
Many extreme acts of athleticism, agility and endurance in fact go completely under the radar since they occur in private, without supporters and while wearing tatty jumpers with bits of bramble stuck in them (sometimes even in pyjamas).
Every gardener knows that tending their precious patch hones the body better than a lycra-clad session on a gym machine you have to wipe clean first. But we also have unique sporting and fine motor skills thanks to years of extreme weeding, pruning, mowing and, of course, that highly athletic sport, tying in (especially challenging when balancing on a garden chair on one foot).
But today these achievements will get the limelight they deserve. To the snail throwers, the bamboo javelin heroes and the shrub hurdlers, this is your moment… I bring you the Gardening Olympics 2020.
All gardeners are Olympians at heart. Rowers have shoulders like Atlas, but this wouldn’t impress anyone who owns a lawn mower with a temperamental starting cord (add dirty spark plugs for an extra level of difficulty). We can marvel at the 100m hurdlers galloping down the athletics track and vaunting over obstacles in their way. But could these lycra-clad Titans weed a closely-planted border without squashing all the plants underfoot, let alone master the specialised technique of shrub hurdling – scissoring over a standard rose bush in shorts without getting tetanus? Personally, I’m hoping for selection in 2028 for the bamboo javelin: a sport I have honed to perfection because I can’t be bothered to walk to the shed when picking up bamboo canes from the garden. On a good day I can shoot a seven-foot cane straight into the chimney pot in the back corner of the shed, a distance of at least five metres – a personal best and possibly a world record.
When I lived in London I was also, like many city gardeners, quite impressive at snail shot put. Any snail I found would be launched with some force and, I like to think, aim, into neighbouring gardens – often in full darkness.
Somewhere in Tokyo a muscle-bound athlete is currently powdering their hands in preparation for lifting an enormous dumbbell above their head. The strength required as their thighs and then arm muscles take the strain is plain to see in their face which, within just a few seconds, resembles a tomato. But what many people don’t realise is that trowel gymastics, in which a gardener must repeatedly squat and stand while weeding out dandelions before their fastidious in-laws arrive for lunch, also hones the glutes to Olympic levels.
Gardeners don’t often run, let alone sprint. But when you accidentally set next door’s garden on fire and can’t find the right connector for the garden hose, superhuman levels of speed can be attained. The Bonfire 100m is a rare event but few sports can match it for sheer spectacle.
Of course, gardeners are naturally pretty good at fencing, but one of my favourite Olympic sports is the Keirin in which cyclists bike incredibly slowly around a track until suddenly pedalling furiously to the finish in a whirr of sharp elbows and flashing metal. It’s all rather perplexing, though anyone who has attended the final day of RHS Chelsea Flower Show, when all the plants are sold off for pennies, will get a sense of déjà vu. The minute that bell rings at 4pm, a Home Counties army with weaponised tote bags storms the trade stands and it’s every dahlia for itself. ✿
“We have unique sporting skills thanks to extreme weeding, pruning and tying in”