Many of us have gardens but are a bit too busy to really do them justice. You work all week then, at the weekend have family matters to deal with, or if you are young and single you are generally too hung over to get out of bed. So meanwhile your garden swiftly returns to its natural state. There comes a point where you realise something has to be done. Usually this is about the time that you can't see out of the front window because of the dense foliage. Alternatively you get home and wonder where your house has gone.
There are several ways of avoiding this state of affairs:
- Retirement: you will suddenly find that you have an immaculate garden with fine, close-cropped grass lined with white bricks. You will also discover that a greenhouse has materialised in the middle of your lawn and that you have become an expert on begonias or dahlias. The drawback with retirement is that you have to stop earning money and start living off your pension so you might not actually be able to afford a lawn mower.
- Hire a gardener: This might lead some people to think of romantic trysts as in Lady Chatterley's Lover (I don't know if her lover was a gardener but I seem to remember that there was a potting shed in there somewhere). The reality, however, is that you will get some chav who's just been kicked off the dole or else a banjo-playing yokel who will speak incomprehensible rustic drivel about ripping out the chrysanthemums and planting mangel-wurzels.
- Pave over your garden: This has often occurred to me as an ideal solution, and would appear to get round the upkeep and maintenance problems. For the same reason, it occurred to me to ask my dentist about pulling all my teeth out and replacing them with false ones, so that I wouldn't have to have any more fillings. He talked me out of this course of action, probably because it would ultimately be less of an earner for the dental industry. The good thing about lawns is that your seven-year-old son can fall over all day without coming to grief, which cannot be said for playing football on tarmac.
So I have written a guide to gardening for those of you who don't have a horticultural bent, the money to employ gardening staff or the inclination to take early retirement..
Gardening is actually very easy if you follow a few simple rules, most of which are common sense. It need not be difficult, or expensive
- Lawns Grass grows everywhere, by itself. If you look at fields as you drive past them, you will notice that this is true. No one planted the grass, it has always been there. Just try leaving a flowerbed for a few months and you will see that it sprouts grass without any effort on your part. This is the secret to happy gardening. Leave it to its own devices and it will be fine. Lawns don't need any food or a complicated sprinkler system. They might go a bit brown occasionally, in which case you spend the summer pretending you have emigrated but come the rainy season (July to June) they will come back OK. So all you need is a lawn mower and a pair of edge cutters. Once a week is great for very short grass; if prefer the lusher look, give yourself every other weekend off. Other plants thrive on your lawn amongst the grass stalks but as they are green as well you won't notice them.
- Weeding This is one of the most tedious parts of gardening but you can benefit from the decades of research into chemical warfare by buying selective weedkillers. Personally I don't recommend them as you never know what carnage they might wreak, especially as you will usually have too much, not want to waste it and wind up storing the surplus in a lemonade bottle, which your child will probably want to drink. So it's a case of falling back on physical effort and removing the herbaceous interlopers by hand. Once again the Rough and Ready Gardener will employ some basic decision making and act decisively. The golden rule is that it is your garden and you can leave or remove whatever you want. If you like the natural look, you can rest assured that you will soon play host to a wide range of native plants. Many of these will sprout colourful bits in summer and actually look quite pleasant. The exception to this is the dandelion, which is the pigeon or rat of the weed world and deserves no less than total extermination. You can recognise dandelions by the fact that they are yellow, and everywhere. They have deep roots as well, which means that you have to dig them out with a spade or similar implement. For everything else, just take a good look and remove anything that looks like it shouldn't be there. Remember, the choice is yours.
- Plants The golden rule for plants is 'Keep It Simple, Stupid'. There are lots of decent native plants that evolved here over millions of years and these will survive your best efforst to kill them. These include things like roses, for example. Daffodils are quite straightforward, if somewhat transient whilst heather is also hard to get rid of. Problems usually start when you get adventurous and plant something exotic, such as anything from a garden centre in a little pot. The exception to this is the Nasturtium. I bought one of those at my old house and very shortly my garden was a vision of orange foliage. It is possible to have fun with some plants, especially if you are planning on moving house. Before you move, simply stick some crocus bulbs in your lawn to spell out a cheery message to the new owners! Especially if they drove a hard bargain when negotiating the purchase. Come Spring they will be delighted to read your good wishes in blue, yellow and orange as the crocusses wake up.
- Trees A tree is for life, not just for Christmas. They are great, trees, and you can never have too many, except that as they grow their roots will make your house fall down. However by the time this happen, you will probably have moved so it won't be your problem. Of course, you can always warn the new owners through the medium of crocus. The other thing about trees and their smaller relatives, bushes, is that they need pruning from time to time. Again, it is possible to be too pedantic and worry unnecessarily about chopping the wrong bits off. Don't worry! It's not possible. I've spent years pruning trees and have never found one that didn't grow back all its missing bits. Just lop off anything you don't think should be there. A word of caution though; do this from ground level. Don't do what my neighbour once did and sit on the branch you are sawing off.
So there you are, an instant expert's guide to gardening. Next week I will explain everything you need to know about cookery. As long as I haven't poisoned myself by then. Happy pruning!!
