Gardening:

‘The glory of gardening: head in the sun, heart with nature.  To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul’

-        Alfred Austin

It’s got that reputation, hasn’t it?  It’s something sad, slightly obsessive, middle-aged eccentrics do: like putting ships in bottles, collecting beermats, double bagging old comics or supporting Spurs.  Gardening doesn’t have the best reputation, but it’s slowly moving past baking as something everything right-minded, decent person does.  Which is appropriate really: nothing is ever fast or easy when it comes to gardening.

 

We arrived in Devon to the cold, slate bones of a late 1960’s council house.  The loosely termed ‘garden’; had both paving traced with weeds and plants that were on the verge of going to the big compost bin in the sky.  We started to get the vibe that this would require an almost equal application of both time and money.  Most things do. And yet, it didn’t really fit me yet.  It sorted drifted in and out as my soul rattled in my mind.  There was a sort of division of labour between my wife and I, both her and my stepson did the preparatory work as a mild Devon Winter set in.  I changed beds, hoovered, baked bread.

Relationship in a nutshell.

Once we’d had two late, but heavy snowfalls, the hard work could begin.  Equipped with a pair of rigger gloves my wife bought me, I was given a job that would require as much mental as physical strength.  There was a plant, left to us by the previous occupants.  The leaves of which, were growing brown. Mmm.  I can, thanks to Mrs McCready; now identify this as a Torbay Palm, genus Cordyline Australis.  We had vague plans to move Cordy into a pot.  However, this would not be as easy as we possibly envisaged it.

For a start, Cordy was well past her past.  In addition, she refused to move.  The best laid plans gang aft aglay in the green, palmy gaze of Cordy.  In addition, she refused to budge.  A hacksaw blade was applied to the trunk, which was relatively easy.  The hard part was digging the roots out of the ground.  I was instantly reminded of the quote by Seamus Heaney about working ‘to move a certain mass… through a certain distance, is to pull your weight and feel exact and equal to it’. However, Heaney was talking about ironing.  Feeling less metaphysical and more Withnailian; I started calling it ‘you fucker’. I called it the worst name I could possibly think of: that of my previous employer. 

This appeared to work admirably.  Dead fingers of black roots were lifted skyward by spade; from the heavy, argillaceous earth.  Or, to put it less eloquently, the fucker was finally loose.  I felt elation that Cordy was finally free.  Conversely, I felt something poisonous and noxious was ripped from my mind.  I had worked on something, both mentally and physically that had no place in my life.  Into the brown bin she went.  Gardening counts as good physical exercise, but it also counts as good mental exercise.  Maybe Cordy was emblematic of something that needed to be ripped from the psyche as much as the soil.  I certainly felt better after it.

This is not to say I’m the only one doing the work. While I’m doing these altruistic, almost Herculaean tasks my wife and stepson are pottering around: planting seeds, weeding, deciding which would be the best bed for planting; amongst a wide range of recently ripped up paving stones.

And, yet: I’m still seeing it as some sort of metaphor for, well everything basically.  Weeds and unwanted plants are things, people, places that need to be removed from your green little universe.  The hard work, the mental and physical effort needs to be applied, to feel alive again. Conversely the hard work pays off: the right plant, in the right place with the right care will; possibly produce results.  Sometimes that can be an immediate payoff, or some kind of delayed gratification. As metaphors go, it’s a pretty organic one; never mind an apposite one.

In short, gardening has re-wired my brain. It’s not put food in my belly yet, but it has certainly given me food for thought. It’s made me at peace with myself for the first time in a long time. It’s also made me look at things I took for granted, left behind or simply forgotten about in a different way.  Like most people, myself and my wife binge watch the odd boxed set.  When my stepson allows us to (current obsession: the Boss Baby series).  The other night, we found ourselves watching an episode of Love Your Garden we hadn’t seen, now the whole series is on Netflix.  For the moment, the fact that we’ve still got four series of current family obsession Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D to get through; wasn’t a major issue. 

So, this is the way I live now.  Separate trolleys in the garden centre, having split the purchases between us. Buying the odd garden magazine; for the bounteous serendipity of free seeds. Paying diligent attention; whilst inwardly groaning when Monty Don (my current guru) tell us ‘Here’s your jobs for the weekend’. Whistling the Gardener’s World theme at odd hours of the day. 

Gardening: you should dig it.