Getting a gardener was the best thing I’ve ever done
If you want something done, ask a busy woman. But there comes a point where even the most capable (bossiest) among us need to admit defeat.
And so it came to pass when my husband whispered in my ear: “Remember thou art mortal,” followed by “Just get a [this word has been redacted] gardener. If the car broke down you wouldn’t try to mend it yourself.”
Not that my garden has broken down, you understand. But I have to admit my deranged modus operandi is less Gertrude Jeykll and more Mr Hyde.
Every spring I find myself gazing out and wondering how I could make my herbaceous border look less like a scraggy piece of wasteland and more like a cohesive Gesamtkunstwerk of serene beauty.
I visualise Sissinghurst, but with a transgressive splash of colour. Or Beth Chatto’s rambling acreage.
Then I drive to the garden centre, dementedly buy everything in sight, tenderly plant it and watch much of it perish, get trodden on or eaten, for medicinal purposes, by our two lolloping dogs.
One year they devoured an entire plumbago – immediately throwing it up again, obviously.
The survivors usually perish, fail to thrive or fail to meet my expectations. Even though my expectations are, by now, quite low. It also costs a fortune. So this year I drafted in a former journalist friend who has retrained as a gardener.
“I promise I won’t hang about chatting, the way my husband does when there are workmen in the house,” I said. But of course I did, oohing and aahing with wonder as she brought out shrubs from her van to unify the bed. She planted a clematis in a prepared hole that was not only wide enough but – get this! – deep enough, too.
Not a single plant had to be shored-up with shovelfuls of earth to cover the exposed roots. She pruned, tidied and admired my vigorously growing peonies.
Then she left. And since then I have felt too paralysed to so much as deadhead the pansies for fear of ruining everything.
I remember Alan Titchmarsh once telling me that most houseplants suffer from a lack of neglect. Does the same apply to gardens? We shall see. For now, I am keeping a vigil and waiting for horticultural harmony to happen.