Disheartened...

I was examining a bare patch of garden today. One which up until recently had stripy petunias and mixed French marigolds in it. I bought them earlier on in the year, lovingly planted them, and was looking forward to a nice colourful display. (My mum bought some at the same time and hers look great.)

Flowers, plants and trees have a tough time in our garden. Problem is, we don’t agree on gardening styles – mine is sort of “plant things, leave them to develop and get nice and bushy, sit back and enjoy” style, whereas the husband favours a “Jack the Ripper” approach. So, basically – I plant it and he digs it up and throws it away, or prunes it in a funny way, or moves it to a less appropriate place (then digs it up sometime later).

Recent disasters include: A bamboo which had just nicely filled its space, and was looking lush, healthy and vigorous - this has been massacred. A passion flower which he prunes every year just as the flowers are forming – I’ve had it about 6 years now and in all that time it has produced one flower. And roses – these move about more often than a bunch of hyperactive kids high on E-numbers during a particularly energetic game of musical chairs. He also has an “unusual” style of pruning. He removes any side stems that form, thus producing some fairly tall thin rose “bushes”. He also re-plants them all up against walls. My mum once asked me why I’ve only got climbing roses – I explained I have actually got NO climbing roses!

If a plant flops about in a natural way, he sticks a hideous stake by it, making it unnaturally erect – foxgloves, delphiniums, lupins, they all get this treatment. Montbretia is another – it just doesn’t need it. The stakes he uses range from hideous planks of wood – big enough to stake a tree; or rocket sticks – which he goes out “harvesting” every November 6th. I like plants dotted about, he likes rows. I plant in threes, he plants in fours. (I say tomatoes and he says tomatoes – oh hang on – that doesn’t work when you type it – well anyway – let’s call the whole thing off!!)

The shed is a bloody nightmare as well. Not only is it falling apart, it’s also home to three dead lawnmowers, a couple of hundred split plastic plant pots, a spider colony, and a truly magnificent collection of rusty, bent, broken and blunt tools. Forks have prongs that point in all directions. Spades lean backwards, shears are crooked with bits hanging off, and nothing can be used properly. Also resident in the shed is “Mickey the frog”. He moved in several years ago, making his “nest” amongst an old box of assorted crappy pots. He left the door open one day, and “Mickey the Frog” hopped in. He told me about it. He said, “There’s a frog in the shed, I saw it go in when I locked up.”

I was concerned – I didn’t like the idea of a frog stuck in there, starving to death – so I unlocked the shed and started looking for it. I found it. He was one of the most unusual frogs I’ve ever seen. Strange brownish colour, two beady black eyes, thin pointy snout, whiskers, long furry tail… sharp teeth…. He scurried away – I left him to it, satisfied there were no imprisoned frogs!

“Are you sure about the frog?” I asked.

“Oh yes – I saw him run into a box of old pots.”

Run? “What colour was he?” I asked.

“Brown.”

He has had his eyes tested since then (the husband, not Mickey the Frog-Mouse).

I’ve really had to fight to save my favourite tree as well – he has done some awful things to it over the years. I think he tries to make it look so bad I’ll agree to him getting rid of it altogether. It has just about recovered from the last “attack” so it’s probably due for another severe hacking any day now. Last time he kept removing branches from the bottom of the tree so it ended up looking like something a child had drawn. I couldn’t understand why, because it used to hide a nasty looking fence. He threatened to cut it down a couple of years ago, but this would have been a little inconvenient (I pointed out) because my washing line is attached to it. He said he would replace the tree with a “nice” concrete post. Lovely! You can imagine how excited I was at the thought of that! Why have a lovely tree that goes a gorgeous golden colour and looks fantastic when the low autumn sun gets behind it, when you can have a sexy concrete post?!!

But to go back to my petunias and marigolds – really – what is the point? Next year I’ll cut out the middle man. When I get home from the garden centre I’ll just tip my plants straight into the bin – why waste time and energy planting the buggers?