The Hasty Gardener
O Rose, Thou art Sick – and it’s all my fault!
My trouble is – in the words of Bernard Cribbins – that I’m ‘too ‘asty’.The garden is full of evidence of the sorry consequences of ‘astiness.
It’s just that everything else seems more pressing than gardening , so I end up with too little time for it and a tendency to rush things.
I’m surprised I’m not kept awake at night by the sound of shrubs protesting. Yet again they’ve been stuffed into a hole that’s far too small for them. Then they are doomed for a certain term to linger in limbo, neither growing nor dying, while below the earth their poor little roots are pressing desperately against the too-smooth and too-tight walls of their cell.
It’s taken me years to work out that this is what’s going on, mainly because I’ve never been able to find the information listed in the indexes of gardening books. Things improved slightly with the advent of the !nternet, where I found a community of people who were asking the same daft questions that constantly arose for me. But even this fails me sometimes.
One question I’ve never found the answer to is what to do about holes in shrubs. I mean areas right in the middle of them with no shoots, leaves or flowers that no amount of artful pruning will fix. Perhaps I should adopt a more rigidly botanical approach, and not just search on ‘hole’ but use some Latin term: ‘hiatus’ or ‘lacuna’? Or perhaps this is just not a thing for other people.
Another tell-tale sign of hastiness is the overcrowding in some parts of the garden. When the shrub I’ve planted so inadequately last season fails to thrive, my solution has been to plant another one next to it the following season, in a desperate bit bid for some colour and foliage. Once the first plant finally manages to establish itself it completely swamps the second one, and God help the third one, planted when the second one fell short of expectations…
All this shaming evidence highlights one of the huge drawbacks of gardening: it’s hard to cover your tracks. Cooking is no problem: there are loads of quick fixes for food that is too spicy/bland/sweet/salty/thin/thick/collapsed. And if the worst comes to the worst, the embarrassment only lasts for a few hours.
Out in the garden, though, a struggling shrub squats there reproachfully the entire summer, showing off its spindly stems, wizened leaves and multicoloured diseases for all to see (unless you opt for the scorched earth look), testament to its carer’s fecklessness.
And the rose? Well, as ever, hearing ‘time’s wing’d chariot drawing near’ and remembering that the roses were showing signs of black spot, I charged outside with the Rose Clear and let the plant have it with both barrels – having neglected to shake the bottle first. So now I’ve spawned a new genus of rose (are you listening, David Austin?): spotted Rosa Moribunda. On what to do about this Google is silent.
Hilarious ????
Don’t know why the !!!!! came out as ?????
That’s a relief – I was troubled to think you were questioning my hilarity!