by Mel (Tue Aug 04, 2009)
I once watched over the fence as my neighbour had her garden landscaped. The neighbour would leave for work, and a short time later a SWAT team dressed in green would arrive. Over the course of a week they pruned and hacked, slashed and burned, dug and planted. The final delicate touch was when they methodically swept the grass with a fine, soft broom. That, I thought, is how gardening should be done. By someone else.
You see I've never had green fingers, although I have tried. I thought any fool could keep a cactus alive, but I found out that it's not the case. Apparently they do need water, and some sunlight. So once I'd killed that most hardy of plants, I gave up gardening for a time.
When we bought our first house, the garden was so pretty I tried again. I rather fancied apple pie made with apples from our garden. Only you don't just get enough apples for one or two pies. You get hundreds of apples that have to be picked, or they go rotten and manky in the grass. I soon got bored of that and left the rotting apples for the wasps; I'm sure that counts as organic gardening or something.
Another beef I had with that garden, was how much it needed watering. To stand for hours watering the soil with fresh, drinking water caused me to lie awake at night. For a time I did siphon off dirty bath water into buckets, but then I had to slosh around the garden for hours watering the plants. Yeah, you‘re right, it was a complete faff. I soon got tired of doing that, but never managed to resolve the garden-needs-watering/third-world-is-thirsty dilemma. I'd pretty much decided that gardening was not for me.
Then this year, when Spring arrived, the desire to garden suddenly came back. Not just the urge to do some light pruning, but a primitive need to dig and plant, and to place roots deep into the ground. I blame my mother-in-law. Gardening is her specialist subject, and she offered to help me create a flower bed. In less than twenty-four hours there it was; a neat, formal flower bed that you might see on a TV gardening programme. It was intoxicating. I wanted more.
Perhaps it coincided with a bad bout of PMT, but I suddenly became crazed. I think the man at the garden centre thought I was hoping for a tryst amongst the Azaleas - I was there every day asking his advice, and filling up my trolley. A willow structure here, some Laurel bushes there, Lilac, Heather, Aubrietia, I bought it all. I dug and back-filled (see? I've got the lingo down pat), teased out roots and edged out beds. After three days the garden was transformed. I wandered happily from shrub to shrub, caressing leaves, urging them to grow and dousing them with pure, fresh, drinking water. I know, I still haven't resolved that pesky water issue.
This sudden conversion to gardening made me ponder. Is it something that appeals to women of a certain age? As the children get older and less dependent, do women turn their nurturing urges to the garden? Do they find solace in caring for static, quiet plants that can't answer them back, roll home drunk at 1am or take the car without asking? Yes, I can see why women turn to plants.
And gardening doesn't just fulfil the nurturing need. It is calming and therapeutic. You can't rush gardening; it's a slow, methodical process. The white noise in my head definitely reduced as I sprinkled compost into holes that I'd dug. Another plus was that with all the digging my bum muscles and biceps were quivering and I felt like a toned goddess. It was almost like going to a health spa; I was zen in the mind, sculpted in the body.
I don't know if the gardening frenzy will continue, but for a few, heady days in Spring the garden and I were in love and it felt good. Mind you, I've no idea if I'm any good at it; all the stuff I planted may die. Well at least I gave it a go, and discovered the simple joy of planting variegated Rhododendrons, Ceonothis and weeping Cotoneaster. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.
