BC Home & Garden

garden » earthwords THE ART OF DELUSION The gardener – like certain wishy-washy politicians – sometimes stands accused of lacking the strength of spirit to do what plainly must be done Most gardens require a touch of ruthlessness Musings on everyday life in the garden by Des Kennedy p86-87 Earthwords.indd 86 every so often, and one opportune time for harsh measures is during the skinny days when late winter grudgingly gives way to early spring. Something in the briskness of air and general arousal of energies seems conducive to taking a nononsense approach to the place. Easier said than done though, because by my observation gardeners generally tend more toward soft-heartedness. Year after year, they'll tolerate chronically underperforming plants – leggy perennials that sprawl indifferently or topple beneath the slightest provocation; shrubs notorious for gangly growth but never a bloom; delinquent willows whose roots can't resist an available drainpipe; or scruffy poplars that loom over the garden like schoolyard bullies. Oh, there's no end of miscreant plants to be found and apparently no limit to certain gardeners' willingness to tolerate them. I could give you any number of examples from our own garden, and here's just one: an emaciated berberis that has been with us for more years than I can remember. "These are cast-iron shrubs," a definitive gardening manual had advised us years ago, implying that no adversity of climate or neglect could detract from their enduring charm. And, as in most things, there was a grain of truth to be found here, for this particular berberis proved indestructible insofar as it would never entirely expire. It might regularly shed the greater part of its foliage, leaving a Sub-Saharan clump of thorns and dead twigs, but there'd always remain some small remnant patch of green, a token both of its endurance and, we imagined, of better days to come. So, I'd repeatedly hesitate to tear the wretched thing up and put it out of its misery. Maybe this year it will leaf out splendidly again, I'd think, withdrawing the grub hoe just before striking a fatal blow. Sometimes a flush of new growth would indeed appear, but by midsummer, having several times backed into the thorny mass while working in the shrubbery and gotten a startling jab in the bum each time, I'd be more than prepared once again to give this spiny nuisance the heave-ho. Observers might reasonably conclude that repeated leniency towards scoundrels like this is evidence of softheadedness. The notion of a plant that has underperformed for a decade suddenly becoming magnificent does rather smack of pathetic delusion. Preferring to put a more positive spin on things, I like to think of the gardener's reluctance to evict the poor, the weak and the huddled as having its roots in compassion and a bracing optimism. We want to believe that, given the right conditions, these chronic failures will pull themselves up by their bootstraps and prove themselves worthy of our confidence. And even if they fail again, compassion bids us to love them still in all their unlovableness. Nevertheless, limits must be placed even upon loving solicitude if the garden isn't to end up a hopeless hodgepodge. This was certainly the case with a rosybloom crabapple that occupied a central position in our garden for many years. Notwithstanding a splendid rosy blossoming each spring, it was a tree of weak and sour disposition, given to numerous ailments and complaints. Invariably its purplish leaves would wither and shrivel throughout the summer, creating a cadaverous effect. In autumn it would drop countless splotchy fruits on the pathway. Its winter profile was not in any way pleasant. For years we sprayed and fussed, but mostly we grumbled, threatening eviction if things didn't improve. Then each springtime that lovely show of pink-red blossom would captivate us all over again and win the tree another year's reprieve. Which is precisely why I propose that, if there is to be ruthlessness exercised, let it be done now, before any hint of new growth starts again fashioning the illusion of a radical change for the better. This is exactly what eventually befell that tatty crabapple – branches, trunk, roots, all of it banished in the cleansing frenzy of pre-spring. And, of course, the garden is vastly the better for no longer having its haggard presence smack in the middle of things. As for the berberis: well, that's another story, because you know they are cast-iron plants and you can't entirely discount the possibility that this one will finally hit its stride and leaf out brilliantly this year. ■  ILLUSTRATION Francis Blake/Three In A Box 13-01-23 11:41 AM

• Cover