SEND IN THE PRO'S?

Since our kind neighbours moved out of the cottage next door I have kept the grass mowed and edged; unfortunately I have not enough time to keep the weeds under control and during the course of the past few weeks the garden has begun to look a trifle overgrown. Initially the Estate's answer to this was to remove all the plants from both mine and the neighbouring garden and replace the flowers with turf!

Mightily annoyed on hearing this I wrote a shirty letter to the Estate Manager, here-in-after to be referred to as The Numpty and gave him the benefit of my thoughts on the matter! I asked him why, when the Estate boasted so many gardeners, did he not send a couple of them down to maintain the garden at the empty house until a tenant could be found? Much to my amazement The Numpty did exactly that and at nine this morning three 'Gardeners', including the Head Gardener arrived with strimmers. Mowers, electric saws and a plethora of other tools suitable in size and number for taming a jungle or maintaining Hyde Park!

I shall not bore you with the gory details. Suffice it to tell you that it took the three of them two and a half hours to ruin the lawn by cutting it below turf level, ripping out most of the plants, strimming the weeds from a brick yard and nicely pollarding a couple of young willow saplings which will of course make a lovely coppice in a very short time.

They were not so much Ground Force as Ground Farce, had they been working on a private garden the owner would have been heartbroken at the mess they made and would most certainly have refused to pay. The destruction of such lovely plants as  pennstemmens, lilies and fuchsias while managing to retain a large bed of ground elder and a mass of bind weed defies logic.

If the Numpty expects the house to be let any faster for the attentions of these alleged gardeners I fear he will be disappointed.

Some gardeners are what we call Paper Gardeners, who are usually stuffed up with certificates and other paper qualifications. They are not true gardeners - avoid them!

Then there are the Latin snobs...they know the Latin name for everything but could not grow a tomato or a geranium to save their lives.

Next come the gadget gardeners, the sort that hires a small digger to remove a tiny shrub and knocks down the neighbours fence while doing so instead of spending an hour or two with a spade. You will have meet the type.

There are the ones who frequent Chelsea, Tatton and Hampton Court flower show, dropping names like Gertrude Jekyl, Alan Titchmarch or waffle on about sustainability without the last idea what it means. These are boring avoid them like the plague.

A true gardener spends his whole life learning, all the time, knowing that his ignorance is still staggering. A true gardener gardens out of love, he gardens because he must, because without the joy of growing things and the closeness to the soil his life is unbearable. A true gardener nurtures,he cares and above all he understands how little of what he accomplishes could be achieved without a lot of help from nature.

I have been privileged to know men and women like these and have learned from them enough to get by, one day I hope to possess such knowledge. For now, I have the love.