Gardens
Shock tactics
Ursula Buchan
There is something faintly amusing about other people's puppy problems, I know. Ha ha, silly fools, we say, they should have thought about the consequences before the Sheraton bonheur du jour was chewed to wood pulp. Well I did, which is why the dog lives in a palatial kennel outside, rather than in the house. However, as it is not thought fair or wise to leave him there all day when he is not out on a walk, he is freed from his prison at intervals to roam at will. The garden is thus at daily risk from an audacity and irresponsibility which would give a teenage joyrider the jitters.
It is an instructive sight to see an eight- month-old Labrador puppy take off from a standing start, when first let out in the morning. There is a terrible single-minded determination in his headlong progress along the grass path to the potting shed where his food is kept. His back legs are more than equal to scattering the grass behind him; so much so that hardly any now grows on the path at all. After break- fast is finished, there are several circuits of the garden which he particularly favours for the pursuit of bungy rubber toys but, like the children, he does not believe in formality of any kind — especially horticul- tural — and cuts corners across square flower beds without regret. These routes are stamped hard as rat runs and the most vigorous herbaceous perennials have not Yet succeeded in pushing their way through.
What is more, he has begun to cast a longing gaze over the wall which separates flower- from kitchen-garden. Tempera- mentally, he would count himself bounded in a nut-shell even if he were a king of infi- nite space. It is only a matter of time, therefore, before, with one bound, he will be all over my parsnips.
I think that I can bear the fact that the Algerian irises have not flowered this win- ter for the first time in a decade; they sput- tered and gave up after prolonged suffocation under his weight, for Jet, like the iris, particularly enjoys a south-facing position. I have even come to terms with the removal of plant labels (infuriating for a gardening writer) and the destruction of several clematis, too small and fragile at this time of year to withstand his momen- tum. I do not even mind the way he stands on my trough of precious alpines to bark at me through the study window. What has been too much (precipitating a stern demand for a new one, not paid for by me) has been the systematic dismemberment of a beautiful camellia 'Adolphe Audusson', which was, until he took to tearing its branches away, growing well in a large pot by the kitchen door. After a spaniel who did little more than bite the heads off daf- fodils, Jet has come as something of a shock.
Measures to mitigate his worst excesses have been taken, but have so far not solved the difficulty. Crossed bamboo canes placed to block his passage merely divert rather than stem, like a rock thrown into a stream. I have put down jelly-like crystals, which are off-putting to animals but not poisonous (called, snappily, 'Get Off My Garden'), round my newest and most deli- cate plantings, but it is beyond me to cover every flower bed. As for the grass paths, I may have to peg down lengths of chicken- wire, to give the grass opportunity to re- establish itself.
Just recently, it has to be said, there have been indistinct, unreliable but, neverthe- less, definite signs of improvement. Surely he is marginally slower off the blocks in the morning and slightly more careful how he crosses the flower beds? Our daily training sessions, carried out on nearby 'set-aside' which even Jet cannot substantially alter for the worse, must be paying off. A year from now, with a staid dog at my heels, I `I can fly higher since I lost my 500 pound deposit.' will wonder what I made such a fuss about.
Already, although I have had to accept that areas of my garden will not grow green, let alone flourish, this season, I do have the consolation of a whole-heartedly partisan, cheerful, and — after a spell lying on the irises — deliciously sun-warmed, glossy Labrador instead. Out of the dog's hearing, of course, I can admit that I would not now be without him for all the tea fam- ily in China — and that includes camellias.
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