Gardens
The gift of a garden
Ursula Buchan
We are as likely as our children to confuse want with need. For, 'I need a Lego Pirate Ship with matching Desert Island,' read, 'I need a house plant weed- ing set with matching soil moisture sticks.' That is why gardeners are such a gift at Christmas. We have so many small desires which can be easily gratified without any- one spending more than seems strictly appropriate, and with the certainty that any present will be (like all the others) just what we have always wanted.
Anyone who reads the 'sundries' pages of genteel mail order catalogues or wan- ders around garden centres will know how rich and various are the gadgets available to satisfy our craving for ease or novelty, or both: telescopic beanpoles, flower-bed hose guides, plant pot dividers, scoops with knurled wheels for precise seed sowing, shuttle riddles and multiple dibbers. Even the names have an Anglo-Saxon sturdiness which is reassuring. Amongst all these objects, there must be something which will make our gardening path less stony. Surely a spot of dibbing, riddling or knurl- ing will make all the difference?
'Well, how would you keep peace on earth hereabouts?' Nor is that the end of it. When the shed is full up to the gunwales with soil thermo- meters, secateur sharpeners and cunning little devices for prising weeds out of the cracks between paving stones, the garden- er will be pleased to receive a sweatshirt emblazoned on the bosom with 'Head Gardener' or 'Under Gardener' (depend- ing on status). If all else fails, a mustard and cress garden in a terracotta hedgehog will never offend, and the giver is on safe ground with a coffee mug bearing the legend: 'Old gardeners never die, they just get down on their knees and grub up a few daisies with an old kitchen knife' — or something equally rib-tickling.
Curiously, most attractive to gardeners are those items which take us back to our 'grandfather's childhood. It is not much fun putting our seed packets in a biscuit tin; it is far far more agreeable to use one with a cod Victorian motif of swirling sweet pea tendrils and monster vegetables. It may not be big enough to hold all our seeds, but nothing will make us feel so much the part — not even a gardener's apron, with pockets for string and knife, or a fiendishly heavy galvanised watering can in British racing green.
Although this is obviously not the time to say so, I am afraid that the number of horticultural sundries which we really need is very limited — and most of these are beyond the pocket of the most generous sister-in-law. Garden equipment which would genuinely make the gardener's life easier and more pleasant, without taking away his or her justified pride in doing a good job, include an automatic irrigation system for the vegetable garden and a mist propagation unit for the greenhouse.
As those will probably not be forthcom- ing, we should restrict ourselves to asking for leather gloves, clog overshoes, or even sticky yellow traps to catch whitefly in the greenhouse. They may not be thrilling but at least they will be used. The same is true of a dreary five-foot square of polyethylene with corner handles (called a 'donkey') which is without peer as a device for removing rubbish to the compost bin. In the electrical line, no sower of seeds, however modest, can really do without a small, thermostatically controlled 'win- dowsill' propagator.
I have thought hard about what indis- pensable gadget I shall be asking for this year. As I grow tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse, I have, after a deal of humming and hawing, lit upon the 'grow- bag feeder'. A tasteful green plastic tray, with three holes for the tomato plants which are surrounded by eight feeding cones, it fits on the grow-bag and, apparently, prevents compost being washed away from the roots. It should look nice propped up in the potting shed next to the broken bamboo canes, tangled pea netting and the remains of a leaky paddling pool. I cannot imagine how I managed so long without one.
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