“Why couldn’t you have done this whilst we were together?” my ex asked as he surveys my newly planted patio garden. He was at my house to pick up our son, but my lack of interest in sharing the gardening was something he often regretted.
“I don’t know,” is a surprisingly common statement among friends and family when I confess that I find gardening with my ex one of the most enjoyable times we have together and apart from the odd meal or two, we don’t really talk about it.
It is not simply because he is not a gardener. It is also rather because we are not really that different, in fact I am more of a hands-off gardener. I do like to sunbathe and he sun sweats. The kids like to play in the dirt and I like to water. For me the garden is an extension of the house and I like to decorate it as well as keep up a range of garden products.
My ex is much more of a hands-on gardener. He takes Rhododendrons very seriously and is always looking for new angles. If he spots a pair he wants to know what they are called. Budding out is not inquisitive enough to ask what they are because he has just discovered them. This isetchup testing time with my ex and if he doesn’t like what he has them sent back to him.
This guy knows how to make a garden interesting. His ex would like to see flowers in pretty pots as soon as they appear. He wants bushes and trees to grow and shrubs to be featured. For him, it is all about function and structure. To my ex, garden buildings are about making a statement and looking practical. Informal elegance is not what he prefers.
He also loathes the idea of ‘budding’. My ex would frown if I called buddings a ‘garden’. He thinks that it is an unnatural growth and that ‘real’ gardens are full of individuals who ‘bud’. Real gardens are constructed out of urns, basements and old logs. He has seen the many benefits of bunched up pots of plants. He knows that when you break a pot of chilies and scatter them around the garden, they will eventually grow happily even without his intervention.
My ex would never understand why I call one of my favourite garden spaces ‘my garden’. He knows that I like the fact that I can leave my garden and move house. He knows that I do not spend any time keeping it up. He knows that I do not spend any time keeping the garden looking nice. And he is right. I am not that kind of person. I do enjoy looking after my garden. I do enjoy having a nice garden. But I do not like the idea of it being some kind of indoor park where I am not free to move around.
The secret for me has been to create the garden of my dreams. I have split my garden up and if you split your garden up you can create smaller spaces. If you do this 10% you are left with the task of looking after your own garden. Now many gardens are far from large so they do not need to have every feature in full bloom. Gardens do not have to be large to be interesting. A good design for a small garden is one that is bold and interesting.
I recently changed my garden’s shape. I did this by pulling up the grass, putting down a few tiles and then laying bricks. I did this because the grass had grown so tall in the previous few years and blocked out some of the summer sun. By putting the grass down I was able to make the garden more direct and easier to view from the house. It is not that I chose to put the grass up there, but it happened to be there and I liked it.
I have also used the patio in the past as a place to sit and have food and drink. It is good in the summer for barbeques. I had a mosquito problem one recent year and this was a great solve. The solution was to use a bunch of beer to spray the plants. I know, I know, this sounds terrible but it really works.
I used to have a compost pile growing outside my back door, but this habit is harder than it sounds. If you are going to be talking to your neighbours about composting then you will need to consider that you will not actually be able to see it in your own garden. The grass may grow up and invade your privacy but you can hide the pales from view. Use bigger planters and shrubs, bigger trees if you can, to obscure the compost pile.
I love my garden, but I do not love spending hours in it.
