HIGH M AINTENANCE

Fresh as a daisy or going to seed?

DEAR JANICE

My neighbour Karen was a picture of elegance when I dropped in one hot day last summer. Large round sunglasses, wide-brimmed straw hat, coordinated shirt and trousers in shades of blue, black gardening gloves and a pair of polished leather jodhpur boots completed her gardening outfit. I felt ashamedly frumpy in faded denim shorts and stringy singlet, old running shoes and grubby canvas hat. The one redeeming feature? Lipstick. I always wear lipstick when gardening because it makes me feel dressed. However, after visiting Karen I realised I needed more than a slash of lipstick to match the elegance of the down-country gardener.

In the hills, where visitors seldom call unexpectedly, gardeners don’t care how they look. I wore a ragtag assortment of ancient outfits or a bikini with sunscreen applied to the bare bits and, of course, lipstick. On the flats, where visitors do call unannounced, a bikini is unacceptable – I need ironing – and ragtag outfits look louche.

So my summer gardening apparel has undergone a modest upgrade. I’ve thrown out the singlets, bought a pair of black sandshoes and rehabilitated a floppy black hat. I’ve kept the shorts though because when prime-time TV presenters wear tatty denims, they’re obviously cool.

I should have paid more attention to my garden apparel years ago. Long summers of sun exposure have speckled my skin and gloveless gardening on frosty winter afternoons has gnarled my fingers. Oh, why didn’t I listen to my mother when she warned me of the perils of sunshine and ice? Because when we are young we think we are invincible, that’s why.

I envy inner-city gardeners. I imagine you pottering at lunchtime or after work for a quiet hour in the garden. You never get muddy, cold or wet and you’re always clean enough to brew a coffee or pour a glass of wine without changing your clothes.

DEAR VIRGINIA

What I am about to tell you is strictly just between the two of us. Yesterday was a heavy gardening day that included tipping over one of t he compost bins and lugging a tarpaulin of compost around the garden to distribute its treasure to the needy plants. I also pulled out huge borage trees and got covered with dirt in the process. My Crocs filled with soil.

Now that is the utterly confidential bit: I swear by the inelegant Croc. Nothing is less stylish – even though there is a Croc shop in stylish Newmarket, and even though my grandson Tane has bought me buttons to clip onto my Crocs to customise them. But they are so easy to slip on and off and this is the crucial aspect of a gardening shoe.

Unfortunately, gardening in Crocs results in very dirty feet. So, after the compost-spreading, I sit in the courtyard with my filthy feet in a bucket of soapy warm water – warmed by the sun because I’d put it there earlier. I read a book and wait until my feet are clean enough to walk inside and put the kettle on. I then put the Crocs into the same water and wash them too. You can’t do that with jodhpur boots.

I wear a skirt when I garden. Once I was gardening out the front wearing trousers and I overheard teenagers in the f lats opposite discussing the shape of my backside, so I now wear any old skirt in the garden – but it has to have a pocket for the phone. I wear an old straw hat that is battered but exactly fits my head after so many years of use. I don’t worry about colour coordination. I don’t wear lipstick. I think the Crocs and the old hat and lipstick would make me too crazy looking. As it is I just look like a happy scarecrow and if I’m in the front garden, standing still with a weed in my hand, the constantly passing pedestrians connected to screens or headphones don’t even notice me.