No Aptitude for Gardening .....

Thinking back into what has definitely become the dim and distant past I have come to the conclusion that nobody in our family ever had much interest in gardening nor any real ability for it.   I can’t wholly blame this failure to engage with the wonderful world of horticulture on working class deprivation tempting though it may be because a great many of our neighbours in those narrow long ago Northfleet terraces managed to turn their little backyards into an enviable explosion of colour each year. Others produced a variety of vegetables and generously shared them with those who lacked the necessary skills to do likewise.   Our gardening skills, as previously documented in some detail, never amounted to much more than stripping Lord Darnley’s woods of primroses on a regular basis. 

Decades later when living in an idyllic acre of native bush in Kohimarama, gardening featured only on the periphery of life from time to time when the children decided they wanted to grow something and small plots had to be laboriously hewn to enable them to do so.   I took as little interest as possible but dutifully cooked and ate the resulting pumpkin and broccoli.  

Moving into this City Fringe Cutting Edge Complex once all three had definitely moved on into adult lives in various parts of the world, gardening could not have been further from my mind.   In fact it only crossed my consciousness when I noticed how others managed to make their Parnell mini-courtyards burst into radiance on a regular basis.   I needed to emulate them and so I put Himself in charge of the project and dutifully trailed behind him at the garden centre only occasionally demanding particular pieces of plant life which largely centred around the dramatic and formidable Yucca.   The information sheet warned that the Yucca was not altogether suitable as a patio plant because of the horrendous damage it could wreak upon the eyes of the unwary but I was able to ignore that advice until it actually happened.    Even then the Yucca wasn’t banished, simply treated with a great deal more respect.   Generally our courtyard was a moderate blaze of glory via Marigolds and Petunias and various other species that were reasonably drought and pest resistant together with a sensible range of kitchen herbs. 

I first noticed the difference some weeks after Himself died and I began to emerge from that initial distortion of normal life that extreme grief brings.  The Auckland Spring still hovered ahead of Summer when I sidled into Kings Garden Centre just as it opened and attempted to look confident among the astonishingly robust octogenarians collecting plant life following their regular morning summer or winter Orakei Bay swims.   I loaded my trolley with Petunias, the only patio plant I still actually recognised and then nervously checked the labels just to make sure.  An hour later and unduly anxious about the technicalities of the actual planting process I opted to simply place the Petunias in their allocated spots still in their plastic pots.

    A day or two passed before I admitted to myself that they did not look quite as eye catching as I had hoped and I hit upon what at the time seemed the brilliant idea of supplementing them with a range of plastic companions from the Two Dollar Shop.  A mere twenty-two dollars awarded me an astonishing array of blooms that appeared to have started life in the depths of the Amazon.   These I unhesitatingly and confidently planted in and around my slightly bemused looking Petunias.  Within an enviably short space of time and for very little cost I had become a courtyard horticulturist to be reckoned with and over the summer many an admiring comment was passed by impressed neighbours.    At times admittedly this was just a little embarrassing.     

          It has become rather more awkward since the sudden descent of winter which my Petunias greeted with a humiliating lack of resilience.   The comments from the keenest gardeners around me are now coming thick and fast, all impressed with my ability to tend and cultivate the vivid crop of tropical blossoms.   My aptitude for gardening is fast and alarmingly becoming legend!