Avid watchers of the recent Chelsea Flower Show will know that rock chick DJ Jo Whiley revealed herself as a keen gardener, and we all know that 80s heartthrob Kim Wilde likes to get her hands dirty. With that level of hipster endorsement I feel it’s probably safe to push the closet door ajar and admit that I like nothing better than getting up to my elbows in compost, and dabbling with my Dahlias. There’s really no shame in sleeping with a picture of Monty Don under your pillow and pretending that you only watch Gardener’s World so that Mrs Bungliemutt can go all soppy over Nigel the dog.
Seriously folks, it’s well therapeutic innit? It’s that primeval sense of creating something beautiful and alive, a green oasis of calm and order in a troubled world [you’re talking bollocks now – Admins]. We live close to the sea, so years of trial and error have taught us that there’s no point growing delicate blooms as they will invariably get blasted from the soil by unseasonable gales, but it’s amazing what you can do with a modest plot. I am a big admirer of the ‘garden rooms’ style of gardening best illustrated by the likes of Hidcote and Sissinghurst. When the evenings get longer and warmer I love nothing more than wandering around my garden at dusk and soaking it all in – a glass of something convivial often helps.
So, before this becomes the week’s least commented thread, does anyone else want to share their greenfingered enthusiasm? Remember folks, rock may be dead but hardy perennials come back every year.
Gatz says
Gardening is just outdoor housework, and I can barely be bothered to keep the indoors tidy. Just as well I live in a second floor flat, albeit one full of house plants. I do seem to have a knack for keeping them alive and flourishing, but that’s probably because I leave them alone to do their thing as much as possible. I’ll leave the al fresco stuff to people with far too much time on their hands for chores.
mr.apollo says
“concrete it over and paint it green” is my gardening motto
Dodger Lane says
Yep, though I am flipping useless at doing anything remotely creative, though the Acer I planted a few years back is still thriving. There is indeed something very satisfying about clearing, cutting old growth back, fussing about whether anything will grow back and then hey presto it’s there again, year after year. This year the lawn is looking greener and more like a real lawn, the apple tree has been viciously pruned back and can hope for a better crop in a few years time. Now, if I could only find a way to get rid of moss permanently.
bricameron says
Lime should do the trick!
Dodger Lane says
Thanks, will try that.
Beany says
My Crimson King maple tree is taller than the house now. Can you guess why we chose it? The back patio is full of propagated fruit plants. Strawberry pots forever.
I have green fingers.
Kaisfatdad says
You’re on to something here, Bunglie.
I don’t know if this is true outside of Sweden, but gardening programmes here have some great music playing in the background as the seeds are sown and the trees are pruned. Mrs KFD was watching one the other night and asked for my help in identifying a singer on a track they were playing.
Emmylou? Iris Dement? No, it was Gillian Welch. A fact which we were then able to confirm by looking at the SVT website.
Someone had clearly taken a lot of time and care in choosing the tracks. All quality stuff. There’s even a playlist which contains many AW-friendly artists.
My only question is: Why do gardeners like roots music so much? I wish they’d take a leaf out of the AW book and branch out a little.
Mousey says
Man I dig my Robert Plant
Martin Hairnet says
There’s a lot to be said for a small garden. Much more manageable. Larger gardens, too, can be divided up into small ‘rooms’, each with a different focus. My ‘garden’ is over twenty acres of semi-wild scrub and woodland that demands endless strimming of jungle like weeds in the spring, and leaves little time or enthusiasm for anything else. I am still hoping to fence and partition a small area, free from wild boar, for an extensive vegetable garden.
bungliemutt says
20 acres? Are you Alan Titchmarsh?
Martin Hairnet says
We live in a fairly remote part of rural Spain where land is beautiful and cheap. Most of the land is dotted with almond and olive trees, holm and cork oaks. But if you just sit back and ‘let it go’ everything becomes a huge fire risk in the summer.
Kaisfatdad says
Visits from wild boar? That does sound very exotic.
Then again, we have visitors like this chap, seen here calmly enjoying lunch at the back of our apartment building. Local gardeners must hate him.
Martin Hairnet says
Here’s a pic. of a large male I got from a night camera. They are incredibly strong animals and can turn a neatly tended garden into something resembling the Somme in a matter of minutes. Round our way there’s been a lot of interbreeding with domestic pigs, which seems to have made them almost fearless of humans, and they will come right up to the house at night. They have developed a couple of wallows about thirty meters from the front door. Most nights I have to go out and ‘encourage’ them to move them on.
Kaisfatdad says
Thanks @MartinHairnet. He looks like a pretty heavy dude. Not a beast to mess with. They have a bad reputation in general, so I admire your pluck in being a “boar bouncer”.
A wallow in your neighbourhood is something that no gardener wants. I hadn’t realised it was a noun as well as a verb.
Johnny Concheroo says
The Leaves did a very early rock version of Hey Joe. Before Jimi I think
Johnny Concheroo says
The Seeds were a 60s US psych band and the Stems an 80s Aussie power pop psych revival outfit
Rob C says
Love it. Good for the head, good for the soul, and you’re working in tandem with nature. I don’t like clinically neat gardens. It’s more about growing and tending. Unfortunately my present side garden is that bit too small to do that much with but when I move and have a larger one I intend to create a wild garden section.
Harry Tufnell says
Astroturf, low maintenance layout and a paid gardener once every six months to do the tidying up that’s needed. White vinegar sprayed onto the weeds on the gravel drive giving that lovely chip shop aroma and a quick once around every morning to collect and bin the dogs eggs, that’s the extent of my gardening.
johnw says
Each time I pass a roll of AstroTurf it looks like a better idea. Or garden is just a lawn and lots of fabulous low maintenance slabs. Gardening consists of cutting the grass (which is a job for my wife after protracted negotiations) and spraying weedkiller at everything else that moves. I used to grow tomatoes but the idea that money can’t buy them died before Guy Clark!
hubert rawlinson says
I’ve got an allotment and I’m not afraid to use it.
Moose the Mooche says
Just removed two of next-door’s cat’s turds.
If gardening is the new rock’n’roll, I’m Van Morrison’s harmonica tech.
SteveT says
Developed a love for gardening over the last two years but mainly due to us employing a lawn care specialist to get rid of the moss and feed the grass properly. As a result we felt it would be a waste of time and money if we didn’t keep on top of it. Looking good and the plants and flowers we have planted make it a really nice place to spend time in.
Gatz says
I think the ‘nice place to spend time in’ bit might the key of my antipathy. I’m not fussed about being outdoors for its own sake. I don’t see the appeal of beer gardens, beaches, lawn chairs or any of the other supposedly enjoyable aspects of the great British outdoors. Give me the comfort of a fully wired and plumbed indoor environment (flowers and pot plants optional) any time. Huysmans, c’est moi.
Nick Nock says
Absolutely useless at it I’m afraid. Wouldn’t know one end of a Hyacinth from another. I had no interest in it growing up which probably stems from watching my father’s hapless efforts. The air of many a pleasant suburban Sunday would be rent with foul mouthed cries – although “Damn it!” and “Fishhooks!” was as foul mouthed as he got – as he lopped the head of an unlucky Begonia, while artfully preserving the adjacent weed. Or as he battled manfully with the mower giving our lawn the look an early Cubist sketch in comparison to the linear precision of neighbouring gardens.
My wife on the other hand excels at such matters and is never happier than when poring over a gardening handbook planning floral grand designs or pottering about at the local garden centre. Frankly, she spends more time there than I used to at the old Virgin superstore in Marble Arch. Imagine that!
If the weather is good than she will spend dawn till dusk edging, trimming, planting, pruning no doubt wistfully thinking about Monty as she pursues these vaguely erotic sounding pursuits. My role is to provide cups of tea during and a chilled Prosecco at the end of her labours. A role I’m more than happy to fulfill.
Meanwhile, while she is carrying out this intense horticultural activity, it leaves me free to pursue truly masculine pursuits such as listening to Miles Live At The Fillmore: The Bootleg Series (again), read the latest Jack Reacher or watch just about any sporting event that happens to be on other than show jumping or ice skating.
Show jumping on ice. Now there’s an idea. I digress. Gardening, like so many other things, not a forte 🙂
JustB says
God I hate gardening. I like gardens, but gardening is – as @gatz says above – just tidying your room as a kid but outdoors.
I’ve got a smallish garden. Herself mows the lawn and every once in a while her parents come over and get tetchy about the shape of our shrubs which leads to their yearly pruning.
The less I have to do with the thing, the happier I am.
Johnny Concheroo says
This bloke presents one of the top gardening shows on Australian TV. I don’t know about the new rock & roll, we refer to him as “Charlie Manson”.
http://i.imgur.com/qPVlDdj.jpg
Moose the Mooche says
In the UK we get Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock.
So it’s all tits.
Johnny Concheroo says
Ah, Charlie Dimmock
….drifts off in a Scania Wheel Nuts-based reverie
Rigid Digit says
Charlie Dimmock – didn’t she used to play for Arsenal?
http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t490/Rigid_Digit/ParlourDimmock_zpsllqtjucg.jpg
Kaisfatdad says
My late father was a very keen and rather successful gardener in his own small way.
He was a very calm chap most of the time, so I remember with some amusement, his reaction to Miss Dimmock. Cavorting braless in the garden was just not done. He went ballistic.
I was worried that he’d do a Father Jack and throw something at the telly.
bungliemutt says
Titchmarsh’s popularisation of gardening has probably been far outweighed by his services to blandness and idiocy. Those with weak stomachs should look away now.
garyjohn says
I read one of AT’s novels once. I can’t remember the title but it was about a retired Doctor who was equally enthusiastic about gardening and shagging.
To be fair to Alan… it was utter shite.
bungliemutt says
Probably the one where he won the year’s ‘Worst Sex In Fiction’ award.
Moose the Mooche says
And, coincidentally, the “Worst Sex in Reality” award.
I usually get that one 🙁
Moose the Mooche says
Actually if either of my parents saw that guy they would greet him with the immortal words “WHO IS IT?” a la Tommy Chong. This is the call sign in our family for anybody of, er, that kind of appearance.
“It’s me, Percy Thrower! I’ve got the stuff!”
ruff-diamond says
He looks more like Allen Ginsberg…
(one for the teenagers there)
Moose the Mooche says
“dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry slug”
garyjohn says
This might be the connection.
Johnny Concheroo says
To quote Billy Connolly, he looks like he’s eaten a bear and left the arse hanging out
aging hippy says
I’ve got a dozen chilli plants growing in my kitchen. Does that make me a gardener?
Mike_H says
My brother’s garden is a mess. He has no great interest in it, just tries to keep it vaguely tidy with rather mixed results.
I live in a small flat and have no garden and just as well, because I never have liked gardening.
My sister likes gardening and keeps hers very nice, especially now she’s semi-retired. She has 4 children, all grown up and settled in their own places.
One of her sons, currently working in private healthcare administration, has seemingly given up his jangly indie guitar-playing aspirations and is studying horticulture part-time, hoping to change careers into that area. There are still glimmerings of the gardening gene in our line.
We come from a long line of gardening enthusiasts on my late dad’s side. His grandad and uncles were professional market-gardeners. His dad and his brothers and sister all kept gardens. His last surviving brother has a nice rural spread in Wales.
Dad used to have the usual roses and shrubs etc. in the front garden of our council semi. A nice bit of lawn, flowerbeds and a trellis with climbing roses and veg and a greenhouse at the back. He also had 2 adjoining allotment plots, one for more veg, the other for fruit bushes. Like most practical things he did, his efforts were a bit ham-fisted but he was an active enthusiastic gardener right up to about 6 months before he got ill and died.
There was a quote from Jah Wobble recently about music being lower down our cultural totem-pole than TV and cooking. I reckon gardening is overtaking music too, these days.
Colin H says
Was Bert Jansch the first rock-era gardener musician? Perhaps so…
I’m lucky enough to have a great back garden – not huge but surrounded by tall hedge/not overlooked, with a pond, four medium sized trees, a small bamboo copse, a lawn, a patio and a planting area. Just planted five new shrubs recently. I’m not much of a gardener but I really enjoy sitting out and reading in my garden or having friends round for beer’n’chat.
BJ: The Gardener (1966):
retropath2 says
I love these ….is the new rock and roll phrases. Is it not the sad truth that Rock n roll is the new gardening more like it, dull and worthy?
Having said, the Squeeze is a genius and has transformed my bit out back into a glorious vista. Never heard the phrase before, but dog’s eggs a hefty problem at ours too.
anton says
anton says
hubert rawlinson says
Gardening songs this is the one for me
Although there’s also Marie Lloyd’s “She Sits Among the Cabbages and Peas”
anton says
Kaisfatdad says
Back in Edwardian times, Come into the garden Maud was the ultimate chat up line.
Modern chat up lines probably also feature coming, but not garden gates and the bat black night.
salwarpe says
My parents are, and always have been enthusiastic gardeners, producing copious fruit and veg in their garden, even in their 70s. I inherited the love of gardening and plants, even to the extent of getting an RHS certificate, and I’m a devotee of permaculture.
Sadly, I have poor species knowledge (without Google image search, I would struggle with naming most plants) and have a patchy record in producing food you can eat.
In spite of this, in our little corner of urban Bonn, there were 60 plants growing on the balcony of our previous flat and I do my best with the shared tract of earth in the back yard where we live now.
My forte is house plants – some 20 growing in my office, and others which I propagate and advise on for colleagues.
Enough indistinct rambling – Let the MC5 take over:
Beany says
Perhaps this LP will help you. Want to borrow my copy?
https://www.discogs.com/Percy-Thrower-Percy-Throwers-Gardening-Year/release/4033452
Martin Hairnet says
I thought there were strict instructions to bury all copies of that LP in the Blue Peter Time Capsule?
Beany says
Anybody else own this LP? It is utterly fab, especially the tracks with Mary Hopkin.
Fin59 says
We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.
People. People.
Moose the Mooche says
….but there are slugs out there! Ewwwww!!
Sniffity says
Surely Donovan invented gardening pop with his “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden” LP?
hubert rawlinson says
or possibly Jethro Tull with ‘The new horse-houghing husbandry, or, An essay on the principles of tillage and vegetation wherein is shewn, a method of introducing a sort of vineyard-culture into the corn-fields, to increase their product, and diminish the common expence, by the use of instruments lately invented by Jethro Tull.’
1731 (That’s just after half past five)
Johnny Concheroo says
Speaking of Donovan, I recently found these sleeve notes on the back of a 1966 Walker Brothers EP. Strange bedfellows indeed, but it shows just how big Don was at his peak.
http://i.imgur.com/pzh71Yl.jpg
Fin59 says
Here’s one for you to till soil to JC.
Johnny’s Garden
Stephen Stills/Manassas
Colin H says
Don was so influentional in the gardening world that he invented Monty Don, a popular British TV gardening homage to himself.
Jackthebiscuit says
Gardening is the new rock’n’roll
No it isnt. It just isnt.
Kaisfatdad says
We think we have problems with wild boars and deer. Spare a thought for those who suffer from squirrels.