Life and Death in the Naughty Corner

This is not the vegetable garden of my dreams.  No-one would call it a Permaculture Paradise, a Garden of Eden or a Perfect Parterre.  This is the naughty corner, where plants go to be punished. 

Technically, it is a vegetable garden - there are vegetables growing here.  On the left is a tower of Scarlet Runner Beans and they seem to be pretty happy, producing lots of pods at the moment and still flowering.  But the rest are neglected children.   The ruby chard is just hanging on.  The zucchinis are collapsing with mildew.  The tomato plants are stunted.  The globe artichokes are dead sticks topped with dead flowers. And the rest are weeds. I am a bad Earth Mother. 

Oh, every year I start out with good intentions.  I am inspired by seed catalogues or magazine photos or even garden visits.  You know those gardens - the vegetables are lush and productive, complemented by colourful annuals blooming under or around them.  Rainbow chard underplanted with Gaillardia;  neat rows or blocks of coloured lettuces, marigolds and ferny carrot tops;  architectural artichokes with pink pansies foaming at their feet; all edged with low hedges of lavender or rows of curled parsley or chives.  I fall in love with these gardens, usually in Winter or early Spring.  I tell myself that I can do this.  I draw plans and make lists. I buy plants and order seeds.  I go out and look at the site, covered in grass and weeds, then come inside and plan some more.  Eventually, I pull on the gloves and begin to weed. 

Weeding is an intense activity.  The world narrows to a metre or so of green and brown, then down still further, to that thick, stubborn clump that won't budge.  I dig and heave, grunt a bit, then dig and heave some more. Finally it gives way, almost throwing me over backwards, dirt spraying up into my face, to mingle with the sweat running down.  My face is now a mud pie. My arms feel like they belong to someone else.  I have read that some gardeners consider weeding to be a meditative experience.  Uh  huh.

Let us draw a curtain over the painful  hours, days or weeks.  At some point My One True Love takes pity on his groaning wife and throws his muscles into the job, too.  Finally the area is relatively clear.  I go to the nursery and buy more vegetable seedlings to replace the ones that have now died in their punnets. Let's not dwell on why.  I plant, I fertilise (a bit) and I mulch (sometimes).  Then I wait with anticipation and pride. I have a real vegetable garden.  It has plants growing in it.  This is incredibly reassuring. 

I don't know why it is, but if I have a cared-for vegetable patch, I feel like a successful gardener.  Perhaps it goes back to childhood.  My father was and is a keen vegetable grower and his garden has always been immaculate.  A weed wouldn't dare to show its head.  His tomato plants are six feet high and built like wrestlers.  The soil resembles fruitcake -  not the supermarket kind, but the one your granny makes, if you're very lucky.

My soil is clayey and has lumps, but the plants grow.  They begin to produce.  I weed around them and water them and pick things.  Then, at some point during summer, it all falls apart.  One day I go to the end of the yard to hang out the washing, and suddenly all is not well.  There are holes in leaves, there is wilting and drooping, there are weeds.  So many weeds.  And it is hot, and I am tired, and how did this happen?  The truth is, I am not a disciplined person.  I procrastinate. I get bored. I have enthusiasms and good intentions, but they don't last as long as a vegetable garden. They die and soon the garden begins to follow. 

Still I want my picture-perfect paradise. So I am not giving up.  I am not waiting until Winter or Spring.  It is Autumn and already I have drawn a plan for a tiny, manageable plot.  The rest can go to weeds and bugs, but I will have my small triumph, my Perfect Parterre, my Vegetable Vision.  I am going to put on those gloves.  I am going to weed and tidy and water and dig beds.  I am going to do it.  Tomorrow.  Or the next day.  For sure.

Border War




Lemon Balm, Melissa officinalis.

 There may be eight million stories in the naked city, but there are lots in the garden, too.  Stories of sex, greed, betrayal and ultimate destruction.  This is one of those stories...

I first met her at a fete on a sunny spring day many years ago. She was on a garden stall and her name was Melissa.  Melissa officinalis.  Even then she had an alias.  They called her Lemon Balm.  She was sweet and fragrant and cheap, so I took her home.  I planted her in a sunny spot and watered her.  She grew happily through spring and early summer, always looking neat and fresh, then suddenly sent up strong flowering stems which attracted the bees.  The flowers were tiny and white, and after she flowered, she seemed to tire.  She began to sprawl about and look untidy, but I didn't want to discourage her, so left her alone until the following spring, when I cut back her old, dead stems and found fresh, green growth underneath.  She had made it through the winter and I was happy to see her again.  That summer, I got to know her better.  She made many a pot of  fragrant tea, both hot and iced.   And then, although she had no gentleman friend of whom I was aware, a baby appeared, just as cute as her mother.  I cared for them both.  In the following years, she had many children and grandchildren, and all were as delightful as she.  "Oh yes", I would say casually to friends, "she's a joy to have around.  She's always fresh and smiling.  She fills in the gaps."  And every spring, I would eagerly await Melissa's family awakening from their winter sleep and stretching out their little green arms to the sun.
But it was all a sham.  The lemon balm wasn't sitting prettily: it was lurking.  It wasn't smiling in the sun:  it was leering.  It wasn't listening dreamily to the drone of the summer bees:  it was plotting.  And it wasn't filling the gaps:  it was planning to invade Poland.
I still maintain it wasn't my fault.  I watered it as often as I watered everything in the garden: that is, when it looked thirsty.  But Ms Officinalis (we will never be on a first-name basis again) always looked happy, so how was I to know?  Last summer, I found out the ugly truth:  the lemon balm had been practically dying of thirst.  I found this out because it rained.  And it rained.  And then it rained some more.  And then we had showers, and a downpour or twelve.  We had our normal yearly rainfall in the space of two months, and the lemon balm began massing troops at the borders, so to speak.  Soon there were no gaps.  "Ooh", we said, "doesn't the garden look green?"  Then some  plants began to go Missing In Action.  "Where's that young salvia I planted last week?  It was near the lemon balm ... oh."
And so it began.  This plant I had nurtured, appreciated, praised and considered a friend, had turned overnight into a brutal thug.  I began by giving her a trim on the top and sides.  It only encouraged (or perhaps, enraged?) her.  These 30cm (one foot) plants doubled in height, tripled in width, and kept on going.  It was then I suddenly realised just how many of them I had in the garden.  They were in every border, which now meant they were advancing from and to every direction.  Drastic measures were called for.  I cut them all to the ground.  It was hot, sweaty and somehow sad work, but when it was over there was a peaceful lull.  For about two weeks.  Then, like a horror movie, they sprang from the earth and battle was joined in earnest.  I enlisted My Own True Love and we cut them to the ground again.  Surely after a second maiming...  and yes, this time it was different.  It only took one week. 
It was them or us.  We dug them out by the roots.  It took a few weeks and a lot of sweating and straining, but we won.  Now, battle weary and wiser, I think about what to plant in the gaps.  Something green would be good....  what's that?  I look closer - a cute baby lemon balm.  So tiny, so perfect...  perhaps if I let it grow but cut it back as soon as it flowers.. .   oh, look, another, and ....another....off with their heads!

Social Climber

Look carefully at the photograph below. It is  the climbing rose "Fourth of July", blooming in my garden.  It is beautiful, yes, but that is not why I share it here.  This rose marks a turning point not only in the history of the United States of America, but, more importantly, in the history of my garden and, in fact, in  my life as a gardener.  You see, it is March (autumn here) and this rose is looking good.

Rosa "Fourth of July"

Ghosts of autumns past continue to haunt me, with their sad, defoliated, dry and exhausted rose bushes, but they have no power over me. I have turned the corner. I am a rose grower. There is no going back. From now on, every rose bush will be pruned, sensitively but firmly, at the proper times, with newly sharpened secateurs dipped in bleach.  I will apply manure and mulch with a lavish hand, suitably gloved.  I will deadhead with the persistance of a zealot and spray at regular intervals with seaweed solution and organic fungicide, mixed myself from bicarbonate and milk in a carefully measured ratio.  I will not neglect to water, no, I will water diligently and deeply, and I will be rewarded.  My rose bushes will flourish; they will grow and prosper, throwing out strong new canes and covering them with blossom again and again; shiny green leaves will testify to all visitors that here, here is a gardener.  I will join the ranks of those whose gardens are featured in glossy magazines and coffee table books.  Others will ask my advice and jot down my wise words.  I will have joined the gardening elite. I will have arrived.