A Lament
Woman in Art / Dave Stokes / Flickr
Some people have the ability to grow flowers, plant fruit and vegetables that would put a harvest festival to shame and maintain a garden all year round that gives pleasure whenever you enter it. These people have green fingers. I do not.
What skill is it that I have not been endowed with? I read gardening books, visit Chelsea each year, admire and listen to experts, but my endeavours amount to very little. There is an advert comparing 2 flower tubs, one of which has been generously fed with a plant feed and the other left to its own devices. The well fed plant is, of course, huge and luxuriant while the other is a mere echo of the former. Alas, the unfed plant is my plant. Not for lack of love or interest or even plant feed, but lack of green fingers.
I am offered advice from the great and good, family members who irritatingly can grow anything they choose to and still I fail to produce a garden to be proud of. I am not concerned that I lack many other skills in life. I have accepted that fact that I can’t sing, play the piano, knit or even bake a cake. My abilities in the work place or home have never been in dispute and I pride myself that I am loved and have great friends, but what is it that allows some a life force in their hands?
Retirement beckons and with more time to devote to the elusive god of the garden, I realise that I can only continue to hope that I can win the lottery and employ a gardener who knows the secret of green fingers!