If you disregard that ill-advised incident with a toad and some masking tape, I am generally not famed for my 'green fingers'.
However, this does not stop me from sallying forth into the shrubbery with the shears when told to needs must.
For the last two days I have been assigned to a mission to sort out our garden and I feel that I am able to pass on some tips to my fellow gardening flora friends:
1. NEVER PLANT CREEPY THINGS IF YOU ARE A LAZY GIT. Tended regularly I am sure that things like Virgina Creeper and Jasmine are lovely. Unattended they take over everything. Virginia Creeper sticks to masonry like shit to a blanket meaning that you take of lumps of render with every tug and Jasmine, despite it's charming connotations with Summer Breezes and sweet smelling flowers, makes the floor of your borders look like the set of War of The Worlds. Huge pipelines of runners radiate out from the plant, stopping every so often to put down their own roots to sustain the next advance. These are just weeds with a fragrance.
2. AVOID PLANTING TREES AND BIG SHRUBS. We have an apple tree in the garden that I have been told I am not allowed to lop down. My idea of an apple tree is one that provides a beautiful blossom followed by sligthly tart but sweet juicy apples. This is not the tree we have. It provides nourishment for poisonous caterpillars and snails but nowt for the fruit bowls of Hummers Halls. Then there are the shrubs that are trees by any other name. I have cut down four woppers and dug up the roots of three of them however one just will not be moved. It has formed a solid root ball - of about two feet in diameter - that has seen off two forks and a spade in an attempt to shift it. I shall build over it.
3. ZERO TOLERANCE TO IVY. Ivy is a grim device on all counts. Snails love living in it but don't eat it and it takes over everything. Second only to Virgina Creeper for it's ability to wreck walls, this pernicious monster strangles things like Honeysuckles and Clematis whilst over shadowing smaller plants once it gains a foothold on the trellis (which it trashes). Just say NO to Ivy.
4. TEENAGER EXCLUSION ORDERS. What parent really wants to find a decomposed prophylactic in the shrubbery? It is bad enough having to pick out fag butts from the pea shingle without having to resort to Hazchem handling techniques. The best approach here is to set a curfew on the garden - allowing no teenagers out there after the sun sets.
Hope this helps.
H
