The Glorious Race
As I stepped into the sunshine this week, I was hit by a sudden panicked queasiness in realising that spring is now here, and that so many of the plans I wanted to achieve will slip through my fingers for another season. No one warns you when you first dip your toes into the world of gardening that time will suddenly telescope in upon itself, and you will always feel that you are racing to catch up with the seasons. Fleet footed spring runs ahead with joyful abandon, gathering strength and confidence daily. Every year I try to race her, and if not to get ahead then at least to keep pace beside her, but I know I will never achieve it. There is sometimes joy to be had in watching others win and this is one of those occasions. By the end of May I will be defeated, muddy and exhausted, but relishing the taking part and in awe of the pace with which she accelerates to victory, particularly after such a cold, wet standing start as she has had this year.
The idea that I feel out of time in my own garden will seem mad to most people. It is after all just my garden, I spend a lot of time in it, it is not paid work and not really very important. Although I do work with and for others, I have decided to dedicate a portion of my limited child free time to my own garden. I quickly realised that the best most flexible education I could muster and fit around the limiting schedule of small children was to teach myself. I may have serious limitations as my own tutor, but I am a diligent student , trying hard to think about what I am doing and how it might be relevant to others. I carefully document my successes and failures as a form of homework to expiate my guilt at the luxury of time gardening for myself. I like to think it already pays dividends in my ability to help others, and I hope will accelerate my progress of understanding over time.
As to one’s own garden not being very important, it is hard to explain the sense of drive and fixation that I have developed over my own space. No one around me seems to understand it and they remind me that it is a lifelong project, that I really have bitten off a lot of space to chew, and that I have so much time there’s no hurry. I know this is true but can’t seem to stop myself and as I fall asleep each night teams of wonderful plants dance through my dreams and plans for the future.
I had hoped to expand our front banks substantially this year, reworking what is currently a sea of Spanish bluebell, brambles and dead shrubs as well as doubling the size of a uselessly narrow border. Despite working as hard as I could on getting things done, these projects have ended up slipping and slipping. I know I should now wait to finish planting until autumn when steady rain is available to settle plants in, and yet I find myself madly planting late at night with a head torch after the kids have gone to bed.
It's important to note that just because I care a lot about my garden it doesn’t mean that I have transformed it into a ‘good’ or elegant space. It is stillna great sea of chaos (much of it of my own making) with small corners of what I hope is characterful planting. I feel ill equipped to make long term, woody decisions, let alone concrete ones, and so the place feels like the loose playground of a plant collector more than a designed garden.
As well as the tasks that I have not had time to get to, there are all those I have been putting off. Last week I finally climbed a ladder and tackled our wisteria which I have left woefully unloved for the last year. Every time I turn the corner and pass it I feel a big whoosh of shame as it writhes about on the wall neglected. I am terrified of being up a ladder when no one else is around to hear me fall and since I largely garden alone the wisteria has suffered. It doesn’t help that the wisteria itself is a rather disappointing pale lilac-grey. Obviously it’s 100 years old so I’m not going to rip the thing out, but I often think resentfully of the formidable and dour Beatrice Webb who planted it. If she’d only had some spring in her step and a hint of a smile I feel she might have chosen me a good one. It is what it is. I hacked it back in a frenzy whilst listening to The Clash and vowed to do better by it next year.
I’ve also been putting off the taming of my two great wild rambling roses, planted before my arrival over a narrow archway. They defy my understanding. I can identify the lovely whippy growth that will flower well, and cut out the flowered branches fine, but each plant sends out so many tentacles every year, great 4m long thorny whips from ground level with which they lash at ankles and eyes. It is too much of a job to completely untie and retrain them over the arch each year, so I am forced to don protective gear and roughly restrain them as best I can. It’s frustrating to be coping rather than excelling at a job.
Beside that I’ve been busily planting out hardy annuals, some into rich improved soil and others into my unimproved powder. Interesting to compare their progress. Things shuffle forward, empty pots are strewn about, the picture gradually improves. Most delightfully of all I’ve been raiding anything amenable for basal cuttings. Partly a learning exercise, partly born of a sort of plant related rapacity that I can’t fully explain, but also with the new justification that I’m growing plants for clients’ gardens this year. I’m hoping this will combine my love of propagation with the practicality of knowing gardens well, on similar soil, and being able to slot in useful plants without a big carbon (or faff) footprint.
In March it feels like every day there is a new treasure open in the garden. The first flowers of Anemone blanda, blue Scilla Siberica, Chionodoxa and best of all the elegant yellow flowers of Tulipa sylvestris. Checking for such happenings daily is no doubt a considerable sink of time as I hunt them out and measure their progress. Dropped in my path, like golden apples, these delights slow me down in my race to the finish line. If I walked past such details I would get a lot more done. If I walked past such details there would be little point in doing much in the garden. Better to lose the race and enjoy the moment.
