HAPPY IN MY DEFICIENCIES

Alan Cochrane may not be the world’s best gardener, but our green-fingered columnist is at his happiest pottering around his plot – and doesn’t need any unsolicited advice

Content bumbling around his plot, Alan Cochrane is not looking for any unsolicited gardening advice

The advance of these giant plants was like something out of The Day of the Triffids

At first glance, or even second and third, the casual observer wouldn’t reckon that it was the home of a committed horticulturist. But in that opinion he, or she, would be entirely wrong.

While I have always been sort of interested in none too serious gardening, in recent times (and following a discussion with the august editor I’ve agreed not to dwell on that virus thingy) looking after the bits around my house has become a bit of an obsession.

It is no easy task for the simple reason that wherever I’ve lived, from the Angus Glens to deepest Sussex, via all manner of city suburbs, I never seem to have managed to acquire a house with a level garden. Serious inclines are always the order of the day – something I only ever notice after the deal is done and we’ve moved in.

The present plot is unarguably the toughest of the lot, and although it’s very much a town house in almost the centre of Edinburgh, it has no less than four levels, if we count from the kitchen door to the back wall. And yet again it’s something I should have clocked when we bought the place for the simple reason one of the previous occupants was a fanatic gardener and did a marvellous job of planting out the various levels with all manner of trees, shrubs and bushes, all designed to come into flower and blossom in seasonal succession.

That was all very well to begin with. But, sadly, as the years progressed – we’ve been here more than fifteen years – the bloody things kept growing and growing until they threatened, and indeed are still threatening, to take over every square inch. Drastic action was required and two years ago I hired a killer squad who blitzed the place, cutting everything back to something approaching manageable proportions.

However, that was then. Like the advance of the giant plants described in The Day of the Triffids, I’m afraid it’s probably time to call them in again.

Anyway, I haven’t let this get me down… well not too much. Having myself helped assault and clear the very top level, there’s now what I’m pleased to suggest is a wildflower garden. Mind you, I’m bound to confess that its abundance of wild flowers is as much to do with nature taking its course as anything

I’ve done. However, at time of writing there are a couple of rows of tatties doing well and a beautiful sorbus (that’s a rowan to those of you not familiar with proper gardening) presiding over everything. There’s a climbing rose doing well, a fast-expanding honeysuckle as well as a quick growing bush, whose name I forget, along one wall.

Elsewhere, and at time of writing, I have exceedingly high hopes of a decent crop of dwarf French beans. I’ve managed that before – except that was in the warmer climes of West Kent, where everything grew no matter what ill-treatment was meted out to them. For goodness sake I managed a few black grapes and lots of outdoorgrown tomatoes in those days.

Out front is a major problem, however. A brilliant builder has laid me a smashing front path but the rest of the front garden is pretty depressing – a square flower bed surrounded by horrible concrete slabs, which must be got rid of as quickly as possible. And so they will, as soon as the budget allows. On a brighter note I do spoil most of the roses there and a veritable avalanche of blossoms is most definitely on the way.

Mind you, one rosebush given to me as a birthday present last autumn appears to have died, much to the chagrin of the kind neighbour who gave it to me. She gave me a strict telling off when she was round for a drink the other night and she’s determined to invade that patch and sort things out any day now.

I do hope she doesn’t. I may be pretty hopeless but I’m happy in my deficiencies.

Advice, as anyone with a garden will testify, is always forthcoming from friends and neighbours. It’s easy to hide the fact that you haven’t washed the breakfast dishes or hoovered the carpet but gardens are on constant display. And everybody, but everybody, has a suggestion – almost certainly unwanted – about what I should do to improve things.