The curse of the green

It’s poetic justice, I suppose. As to gardens, I deserve this turn of the wheel.

Readers of Tone Deaf and, before that, Works Well, will be wearied by my anti-garden threnodies. I hate digging, planting, weeding and all the rest of the seasonal labours even if I do enjoy sitting with VR on the patio, drinking an expensive  Rhone Valley white and contemplating my shabby horticultural empire.

We’ve paid gardeners (very well by Hereford standards) but for one reason or another they’ve fallen by the wayside. Recently we thought Paradise had descended when Barry and his grandson spent two days tidying up out back. Good grief, it actually looked like a garden, even if my criteria are modest.

But Barry should never have done it. A self-admitted perpetual-motion machine he’d just had his knee replaced and by attending to us he aggravated the healing process. This week he re-entered hospital and I’ve yet to hear the outcome.

Before he did he bestowed twenty marigold plantlings on me. Wouldn’t accept cash. Then give it to charity, I urged. Rumbling somewhat he admitted he and his wife supported the Cat’s Defence League. No, ten quid was far far too much. A fiver then.

A dozen plantlings occupy the two troughs at the front. The casual sticks you see are from rose trees and their spines – ironically – keep cats out of their chosen lavatory. Thus begins the paranoia. Frost might have happened but didn’t. But the wind was strong enough to shift the troughs never mind the piteous green shoots. They survived. We now need hanging lobelias and they may not be so lucky. Worry, worry, worry. I did once raise the subject of silk flowers. But that, I’m told, would be cheating.

The new novel waits, lusciously.