Tag Archives: gardening

Gardens are hard work

I love a well laid garden.? I love the variety of colour, the imaginative creativity, the assault on the senses.? I love the idea of cocktails on the patio and barbecuing every night.? I love the smell of freshly mown grass and the sight of fruit ripening.? I love all these things, as long as I’m not expected to work for it.

If I were to win the lottery, I would employ a gardener.? Even if I didn’t upgrade my house, I would still have someone come in, organise the garden to my instructions and return weekly (or whatever) to keep it under control.? I adore scented flowers, revelling in the cloud of perfume they produce – especially in the evening.? I want a bee and butterfly corner, fruit trees and a vegetable patch.? But please don’t ask me to actually work in the garden.

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It’s not that I wouldn’t want to.? In spite of the bees, worms, SPIDERS and other creepies that live in the environment, I used to thoroughly enjoy the rush of seeing a cleared patch of land, plant it with carefully chosen examples of flora and watch, as they grew and flourished.? Some producing flowers, some comestibles.? Mother nature at her finest.

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However, Mother Nature has also had a hidden agenda for some years now.? She has gradually whittled away my ability to actually do anything in the garden, however much I want to.? I can’t kneel and my hands are no longer strong,? complaining after too much use.? I know I should at least do some work and stop when my bones have had enough, but I never know how far I will get and that puts me off starting.? It’s a rubbish excuse, I know, and I feel myself talking myself out of the prevailing situation.? Perhaps I should find another way to garden – boxes, pots, raised beds – ways round not being able to kneel.? I could use the gardener money for something else.? Oh, yes – I know!? I could use it to pay for a gardener to set up the garden the way I want it!

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