Andrew Kay: Digging in
City living, country style …
Much as I love the urban life, city dwelling is ingrained in my heart, I still have a touch of the country boy about me. If that sounds a little bit Nashville then watch this space and find out soon about my day at the recording studio – more of that very soon.
By country, I mean a love of the outdoors and in particular of gardens. I’ve not had a garden for some years. To be honest, when I last had a garden it was a very needy beast indeed, requiring hours of work. Not that I resented it, well not much. Having a beautiful garden in which to relax is worth its weight in gold.
At my new home I do not have a garden, I look out on someone else’s garden yes, but it’s not mine. That means I have the pleasure of their horticultural labours without the blood sweat and splinters. It’s nice too but it was failing to satisfy the need to plant.
I have now taken this in hand and started to creat my own ‘hanging gardens’ … my outside space is limited to a lovely wide stairwell, which has been painted brilliant white to reflect as much light as possible into my home. It works but the view can be stark, to say the least. Not any more.
I have invested in plants and in containers. Miniature zinc tubs are now filled with hellebores and ferns and terracotta pots are full of hard and soft herbs. It’s starting to look good but in truth it lacks height, it’s a deep space after all.
So I have now started to propagate seeds in funny little pots. I toddled off to the garden centre in search of suitable delights to add the height I desired. There was so much on offer, things I knew and things that I had never heard of. In the end I decided to stick with a balance of the scented and the edible. So now my window ledges are filled with pots of peas, beans and my favourite – sweet peas.
I watched them closely, too closely, for days, and nothing happened. Then I went away for a few days and when I returned there were shoots, little bright green rays of life that filled my heart with joy. Symbols of a new start, I thought, then quickly curbed my tendency to that sort of soppy nonsense.
The shoots are doing well and, if they are successful and grow they will fill my outside space with colour and perfume that will cheer me. That’s all, they’re plants, nothing more. If they grow that will be good and if they don’t I will go and buy some more; that’s life, and that’s death too, when it comes to greenery.
I guess that is why I have always favoured cut flowers to house plants. House plants come with the ever present threat of death and a sense of failure. Cut flowers come with no more than the promise to look good for a week or a little longer. They seldom disappoint in that sense.
Of course if the sweet peas are a success I will get the double pleasure as they thrive on being cropped. The peas and beans I hope will do the same.
I must go now though as I have a pressing appointment with a packet of chive seeds and some flat leaf parsley, then a trip to Boots to buy a decent nail brush to get my fingers back in shape. It’s a messy business, this small time gardening malarkey.
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