Being a Gardener involves sowing, planting out, pruning, snipping flowers to display on the dining table and plucking or digging up the fruit and veg of one’s labours, nice things like that.
However, sometimes it’s just plain down ‘n’ dirty work. It gets muddy, cold and wet and there’s those poor throbbing pin-cushion like hands from the needle-like pricks, piercings and scratches of vicious thorny roses.
Thank goodness for things such as a waxed Barbour jacket, waterproof trousers and thick leather gloves… still, I admit l love it all the same.
This time of year the ground’s no longer frozen, but it’s quite sodden. If you live in London, which is built on clay, you’ll find an extra two inches of the stuff firmly adhered to the sole of your wellies, plus another inch clamped to the blade of your spade, even those supposedly non-stick stainless steel ones; it’s a bit like wading through molasses… not that I ever do.
As to the weather, I can tolerate heat, rain and wind, but when the mercury drops below zero, it can be difficult to get anything done with fingers that refuse to flex or grip.
We had snow recently, it fell on the Monday with a full diary ahead. I thought I’d best suggest to my clients, it might be wiser to push things over to the following week, ‘Of course Frances, I was going to suggest it myself,’ oh good. Well, there’s really not much one can do in a garden blanketed in snow, so, one may as well enjoy the fleeting view.
This week, a client wanted a long, high wall cleared of years-old invasive ivy, now that really is a dirty job (careful to check for nesting birds). The amount of dust and detritus an old ivy-clad wall holds and can kick up, has taught me to now always wear glasses and a mask.
And to think, I used to part with good money for this stuff. Now I understand why the folk at the garden center wore a bemused smile (or was it sympathetic?) every time I handed over my £4 for a weeny pot of ivy.
