A preview of Down the Garden Path- snippets from The Cottage Gardener

Transience

I met up with an old friend the other day who is more interested in fast cars and faster women than gardening(who can blame him?!?). He asked me what was the point of a wisteria when it only flowered for about 3 weeks. I thought he was trying to provoke me so I simply replied rather flippantly that yes we should pave over all gardens to save us the trouble of gardening for overly precious plants.

Of course what I really think is that the issue of transience is key here which the Japanese highlight in the way they immortalize the cherry tree’s progress through the seasons. Essentially, the beauty of a wisteria in full bloom is worth the effort for the rest of the year in the same way people never forget that first night where they danced all night with their first love. Both events are extremely beautiful and memorable but short-lived in their climax so to speak (but no less important for that). Kate Moss asked ‘Why can’t I have fun all the time?’ and indeed it would be fantastic if our lives were constantly full of love, interest and beauty. The reality for most of us , as you well know, is very different.

The Chalk stream

Chalk streams are incredibly special places to seek solitude in. The water is so clear and healthy looking and the sound it makes so soft that it creates an extremely appropriate atmosphere for a Sunday picnic. Also I always hope to catch a glimpse of a largeish brown trout drifting down the current because I always wanted to test the theory of Doc Spencer in the book Danny the Champion of the World that you could catch a trout by tickling them out of the stream…

I was fortunate enough to come across a beautiful woodland in Norfolk with a chalk stream meandering through it. Not only was the dappled shade and birdsong appealing but there were wild strawberries and raspberries growing abundantly for snacking on and plenty of foxgloves and honeysuckle clambering up the trees to appeal to my inner gardener.

There were very few people about even though the wood was very close to a busy A-road so I was able to lie down by the river in peace rather like you could at a Buddhist temple or indeed one of the nearby forgotten churches of North Norfolk.

The whingeing gardener

I used to work with a gardener who loved to have a good whinge about the work he was doing. He wasn’t lazy or incompetent he just couldn’t resist having a good bitch about something related to the job just as we were reaching the crucial stage of completing it.

As a result whenever I am doing a really shitty job (and I have done a few!) I think fondly of what he would say if we were pulling up brambles or tackling an oversized ivy on a scorching day in August.

There is a stretch of the road that connects the Docklands to the M11 which I rather think I would pay him to clear by hand if I had won the lottery. Not to help out the local community, you understand, but just to see the expression on his face as the cars rushed past this extremely long wall completely covered in a very well established ivy. No wonder he called me ‘Sadistic Sam’!