Gardens
Eye of a beholder
Ursula Buchan
n the past, I have resisted requests from gardening clubs to visit my garden, on the grounds that it was still in the process of being developed. This has always been strictly true, of course, yet it has been a relief not to have to expose my efforts to the unblinking gaze of knowledgeable strangers. This year, however, I had finally to admit that the hard landscaping work was over and, although some of the borders were not yet fully planted up, a visit could not in all fairness be by another year delayed.
So when asked, not for the first time, by the secretary of a local society (to which in less busy days I had belonged) I did not refuse outright, although I fought a rear- guard action of persuasive explanation: destructive puppy; youngish children; a book to finish urgently; no gardening help. He was charming but unpersuaded. I should know by now — having given talks to W.I.s in the past — that there is none so deaf to paltry excuse as he (or she) who has a monthly programme to fill.
My brain fogged by panic, I agreed to a date in late July, even though this is more a June garden, best when the roses and early summer flowers are out. I told him that the garden was not enormous; he said that the members liked to spend three-quarters of an hour looking round before adjourning to the house for a meeting and refresh- ments. Even I, who love my garden with an unspoken but nevertheless fervent passion, cannot find enough to look at for 45 min- utes, without getting down on my knees to do some weeding. Yet I dreaded that his members might, for want of something bet- ter to do, kindly start pulling up sow-this- tles for me.
'Dad; can you fetch me a glass of air?'
My greatest anxiety was the state of grass. Apart from the dog, its worst enemy is our young son, who is never happier than when digging out yorkers bowled by his hugely patient parents. This year, he has forbidden us to use anything but a proper cricket ball. The transition from tennis to cricket ball is quite a moment in a young chap's life — when he feels his soft palms can take the sting of stitched leather. But it is disastrous for the lawn and even more for flowers in the adjacent borders.
As the summer wore on, I took less and less pleasure in my garden, becoming blind to everything but the bindweed and blackspot. Knowing that one long border, in particular, could not be planted up per- manently till the autumn, I filled it with masses of home-propagated half-hardy annuals, to provide 'a welcome splash of colour' for the late July visit. I would not settle for lobelia, scarlet salvia and alyssum, of course; oh no, this was 'bedding' al la Palm House lawn at Kew. Nicotiana 'Lime Green', white Cosmos 'Sonata', green Molucella laevis, blue Salvia farinacea 'Vic- toria' and Heliotropitim 'Marine' would make, I hoped, a tasteful scheme in white, lemon-green, yellow and purple-blue. Ter- rified that there might not be enough plants, I transplanted self-seeded Bidens ferruhfolia, with its prolific but, in a perfect world, too harsh yellow daisy flowers. Three days before the proposed visit, the only thing flowering with real conviction, having quite swamped the salvia and heliotrope, was the Bidens.
For days before, I fussed and fiddled, determined to make the garden tidy, even if I could not make it mature. I weeded and mowed and hoed and clipped, and then I clipped and hoed and mowed and weeded. By the time the group arrived, they had become, in my mind's eye, a troupe of unfriendly carpers, easily bored and inclined to derisive laughter. To head off any possible criticism, my welcoming speech was a wail of excuse and self-justifi- cation.
It may be that not all of them went over- board at the sight of my naturalistic bor- ders, my oh-so-sophisticated 'bedding' plantings (the heliotrope having resolutely refused to come into flower), and my rows of neat but unexciting vegetables. If so, they hid their disappointment well. More- over, some of them made positively encouraging noises, asking me admiringly about plants I had heretofore taken com- pletely for granted, and praising me for design effects which were often accidental. Of course, I modestly disclaimed all credit, but not so aggressively as to cause offence.
More than an hour went by, while we stood around exchanging horticultural chat, so satisfying to gardeners and so stupefying to the rest of the world. When we finally removed to the house, I think I heard myself asking them all back next year to see how the garden had developed. Surely I didn't — did I?
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