Momentary magic This year Frank finds he has only a short time to spend in his Worcestershire garden – but at least it’s in May
Frank is granted his wish to be in Worcestershire now that May is here – but only for very briefly
Even after a whole winter of May-like weather in California, I still long to be home for the real thing. May, after all, isn’t just about the weather: it is about every thing being new and fresh; when even the most senile oak is giddy and the humblest ditch flush with perfection. The ‘little moment’ that Shakespeare spoke of is a good month – perhaps he had been too long in London by the time he wrote that sonnet. Or perhaps I have been too long in California already and am romanticising.
I don’t think so. Every May for ten years, when I came to look for a subject for this column, all I could think of was to find another way of saying that this is the most beautiful month, and that you might have the best peonies in Christendom but this is the one month when, if the worst came to the worst, you wouldn’t need a garden at all. People talk about October and say that autumn is their favourite time, but they are only looking for notice by trying to be different. October is amazing, but it and every other month are nothing beside May.
Now hubris has caught up with me, and this year I am saying that I want nothing more than to be in Worcestershire in May, with my own peonies, which are not even the best in the parish. And so I will be, for less than a week, but a week is infinitely better than nothing. And that will be after two April weeks of madly trying to catch up on having done nothing there since Christmas. In the middle of April the garden will be a guilt-inducing wreck. But then May will come: all-forgiving May when every weed is beautiful and the goose grass is still only trails of optimistic freshness adorning the hedge.
Normally you know the day you have to pull the goose grass out before it is too late, and you can admire this harmless infant state in comfort. And normally you can enjoy the cow parsley because it is where you want it and you think you will have it all cut down before the seed is ripened (not always a thought that tallies with reality). You can enjoy the celmisias flowering, and think how nice a background the artichokes make, knowing that you will be there to divert or truncate any encroaching artichoke leaves that threaten, for no celmisia likes to be touched.
What then of my short May week, to be followed by months more of abandonment? Am I to lay waste to the cow parsley while it is still coming towards its best? A bit of a pointless exercise that, as it would probably only delay flowering and so not prevent seeding at all. Some good can be done among the goose grass with a fine tooth comb perhaps and the celmisias can be given a hurdle or two to deter their enthusiastic neighbours, but multiply that by a hundred other jobs I can think of, and the several hundred I don’t have the imagination to because they aren’t under my nose, and we are looking at a week of neurosis with me unable to see the flowers for the weeds. What a waste that would be. I’d be better off to find myself that humblest ditch and spend the days staring at stitchwort. For years I’ve meant to bring stitchwort into the garden along the hedge bottoms. There are few plants more beautiful, wild or tamed, and it demands no husbandry or love and would never suffer for abandonment. It is what May is. A sign to let go, to stop worrying for now. I can leave the thrashing around and catching up and rescuing until later in the summer. The important thing is that, even if the worst comes to the worst and the garden is lost, I can still come home in May and not need a garden at all.