Gardening
RAISED BEDS, RAISED SPIRITS
Since undergoing major spinal surgery in February, I’ve rethought and seriously modified my gardening activities. Modified, not stopped. The thought of not gardening would ferry me smartly to the cemetery for my own ritualistic planting – six feet under.
Within weeks of having two vertebrae removed (my backbone now ‘bridged’ by titanium plates), I ventured into the garden to prune some roses, helped by loving hands which moved my chair (I couldn’t stand or bend) from one bush to the next. It took all afternoon to tackle 14 ‘Roseraie de l’haÿ’ which, seven a side, form an ‘avenue’ leading westwards from a downstairs room temporarily converted for my recuperation. Before the op, I’d have dealt with those roses in under an hour. This particular rugosa rose is a long-standing favourite: robust, healthy, floriferous in guardsman red and highly fragrant, with large, tomato-like hips at the season’s close, when the plants continue to produce more flowers. It’s a rose of seemingly inexhaustible stamina – quite unlike one’s present self.
A future of sedate, sitting-down gardening held no appeal. So I stole on to the internet in pursuit of long-handled tools: fork, spade and various trowels. Bending to ground level, as gardeners must, was too painful; hence my renewed concentration on the dozen raised beds we made many years ago for growing fruit and veg. They bring the soil surface a vital eight inches closer to my hands.
Older and/or disabled gardeners know the benefits of raised beds and I urge the uninitiated to consider having some made. They should be narrow – no wider than four feet – to allow easy access from each side without your having to tread the soil. We used weatherproof, tanalised boards to form square and rectangular enclosures of various dimensions. Any dimly capable Diyist could knock them up in doublequick time. But a difficulty comes from having to fill them. Without ground enough to mine your own topsoil, you must consider buying in considerable quantities of the stuff. Bear in mind, too, that, after filling, the soil will settle (as in graves, which is why the installation of headstones is usually so long delayed after a burial). Provision must therefore be made for top-ups, done here with yearly barrowloads of compost.
Revitalised and refreshed, our raised beds have now largely been given over to ornamentals – bulbs, a few annuals and, of longer lasting duration, cheery perennials. In addition, I’ve been sourcing taller-growing plants, especially those into whose flowers I want to push my nose to glean every atom of perfume without having to bend, sit on a chair or suffer the angst of squatting down.
Foxgloves clothed these beds in May and June; indispensable regal lilies – Lilium regale – were a sure-fire summer winner, their maroon-backed or pure white petals following on in July. And now, lasting well into autumn, this rich floral tapestry is bespeckled with tobacco plants, wafting their eventide scent up to my sleeping head, in my newly reoccupied upstairs bedroom.
Conspicuous in a recent bulb order were many lanky subjects – the tallest tulips, Fritillaria imperialis, towering alliums, soaring foxtail lilies (eremurus), some gladioli in carnival couture and lofty irises in similarly bright garb.
Necessarily, regrettably, but I trust only temporarily, my gardening has been reduced to doll’s-house dimensions. So, for next year’s shelf displays in the greenhouse, with heater, radio and armchair newly instated, my imminent bulb shipment includes diminutive crocuses, scillas, muscari, dog’s-tooth violets (erythroniums), some weeny fritillaries and a band of low-growing wild tulips. Manageable, but … more compost, Jeeves.