In Praise of Gardeners

By Aisling Blackburn

Front gardens are so enticing - the ones you see while out walking around a town, city or suburb. Our clothing gives an impression to the outside world, one that might reflect who we are or want to be seen as; I think it’s the same with front gardens. For example, one surrounded by high hedges seems to say, “please mind your own business!”

“I adore my garden” says another, “have a good look!”

A front garden might timidly say, “I am afraid to grow anything, so I will just keep this patch of green”.

But even a lawn is a group of plants; if you can manage a lawn, then you can also manage a fuchsia or a small tree, roses are not usually for beginners - that is unless it’s a shrub rose. Examples of shrub roses that are easy to grow - Rosa rugosa, R. moyesii ‘Geranium’, R. ‘William Lob’.

Heavenly

Aeons ago, I dug up the lawn in our own home garden; my dad’s response was to go out and buy me a set of garden tools, though I was sure he was going to freak out. There were many gardeners on his side of the family.

My grandfather who I never knew, was a forester in Powerscourt, and his father a gardener before him.

As a student, I worked in Enniskerry on a private estate for two consecutive summers; and first saw the hummingbird hawk moth swoop in and sip nectar from the fragrant blue Nepeta growing there.

The deep herbaceous borders and gardens were designed by Helen Dillon and Jim Reynolds who were practitioners in the style of Gertrude Jekyll, a truly heavenly place to work in.

Eco-warrior

A rare sight nowadays, is to see people out and about in their gardens, just mooching and pottering, tweaking this and that. Speaking as an avid potterer, I often idealise leaning over an imaginary fence, chatting with the non-existent next-door-neighbour about what to do with the roses, and the scourge of greenfly, and could they spare us a cup of sugar? I know I’m not a towney but underneath, I might be a surburby.

Someone called me an eco-warrior recently, that was interesting as I am more of a butterfly fancier. I don’t spray weeds I suppose, but a good example of a real eco warrior would be Greenpeace, who stopped the government sanctioned practice of allowing companies to dump nuclear waste into the ocean in the 1980s, and again prevented Russia, in 1993, from loading toxic barrels into Japanese waters. Or Greta, who recently sailed with others to Gaza on a boat with lifesaving medical equipment and food and faced off the IDF, and she is off to do it again soon.

I have previously mentioned that some of the volunteers to the community garden, come from afar and may not have previously stepped foot in a garden before. Therefore, I was presently surprised when just the other day, I found two of the newest ones busying about doing the daily tasks - with finesse- I might add. Another budding gardener had shown them the ropes. I was both deeply impressed and somewhat ecstatic. I need not have kicked myself for not being there; also, I knew that this hands-on knowledge would stay with them for the rest of their lives as it did with me.

There are some excellent gardeners in my own neighbourhood. All the ingredients for a grand garden are there - lights (nice warm gentle ones), ponds, fountains, trees, shrubs, climbers, roses, herbaceous perennials and posh grasses, although not much in the line of fruit or vegetables. Some with and some without lawns. Should they turn their hand to food production as well, I have no doubt that theirs would be a garden of Eden.

Convenience

The older generation in Ireland - probably in other places too, associate food-growing with back-breaking work. Understandably so, and there is no real need to while supermarkets are bursting with produce, and it’s far easier on the back to just buy vegetables.

Younger generations are suspicious of eating what comes from the soil. Maybe we have lost something with all this convenience? You know the garden can be your gym, as well as your larder. Just a single tree in a garden can give a child memories that will stay with them into adulthood. You can have a beautiful messy garden too, with wild long grass – but only if you are a brave eco-warrior.