Gardener's World

The garden that came with my house is my Other Half’s domain. I am no gardener; I don’t have the patience to wait for a kettle to boil so there’s no way I can possibly wait for something to grow. If it was up to me our garden would consist of Astroturf, bark chippings and enormous plastic plants. I can’t even be arsed with planters on the patio as you actually have to water these stupid things in the summer. Clearly after a long day in the office the only thing I want to do is stand outside holding a hosepipe trickling water into a wooden planter full of flowery things. You could argue that with a watering system in place all I have to do is walk outside and turn the tap on, but this interferes with “wine time” and frankly I cannot be bothered to even do that.

As there is more chance of me paying a subscription to the Royal Society for Waiting & Patience than actually planting something, it is strange that I love Gardener’s World. It is my weekly aim to be in my pyjamas and on the sofa by 8.30 on a Friday evening, ready to see Monty chuck a tennis ball to Nigel and watch Carol (clearly on Valium) adding grit to the bottom of her plant pots. I have absolutely no interest in gardening so I can only conclude that I enjoy lying on the sofa on a Friday night with a pint of wine watching other people work.

If the garden was left to me I would buy full size artificial trees and have them lowered into place with a crane. A gardener can never sit in a deck chair in their garden and think “There. I’ve finished it.” because the job is never ending. The only part of the garden I take an interest in is the growth rate of the lawn and this is only so I can gauge how much grass my horse is guzzling in his postage stamp of a paddock.

This disappoints Other Half as he appears to have something of an obsession with grass. I have checked this theory with my friends and we are all in agreement. The men-blokes are fanatical about their grass and are only content when their lawn resembles the Old Course at St Andrews.

Before I became aware of this “Man-Mania” regarding grass, I made the terrible mistake of allowing my horse to walk across our lawn. It was December, the lane to the field was sheet ice and I chose to take my expensive, spindly-legged equine up my garden to his field, rather than risk a Vet’s bill by allowing him to skate up the road. Good God, Other Half spent the next 4 months filling the 3 inch deep hoof holes with sand and sprinkling them with grass seed, with a very cross expression on his face.

This moment was surpassed when the current horse took fright at the new Farrier and galloped off across the garden. By the time he had calmed down and I was able to catch him, he had performed something that resembled a Strictly Come Dancing routine on the lawn. I knew this was bad as Newcastle Racecourse have less damage after a full day’s racing when the going is good to soft.

As a result; I have learnt to respect the lawn and I have also noticed that we have a considerable and frankly elaborate, Lawn Mower Collection.

When we first moved to this house we were mowerless as our previous houses had no gardens. And it was apparent that despite the garden being somewhat undulating there was a fecking ton of grass to cut. For a while we had the most expensive law mower in Northumberland as the expensive, spindly legged equine roamed freely. It was only when he began pruning the roses with his enormous teeth that Other Half went out and bought a strimmer. Then Artist Friend gave us an old lawn mower as a moving in present. Old-Mower did a marvellous job but didn’t propel himself and so took a lot of effort to push it up the steep slope in the garden.

Then we acquired a second more modern self-driven mower from my Father’s friend, who no longer required it to cut his town garden that was the size of my bathroom. I thought we could then get rid of the Old-Mower, but Other Half insisted that Old-Mower would be used to cut the rougher areas of the garden and Self-Driven-Mower would cut the neat sections of lawn.

Then Teacher Friend invested in a new ride-on Mower and asked if we would like to buy her old ride-on mower.

“Tremendous,” I thought, “Now we can get rid of all other mowers and just have Ride-on-Mower. It will save Other Half so much effort.”

But there are places in the garden where Ride-On-Mower cannot be used. Some of the garden is too steep and having once witnessed a near calamity, I agreed that Ride-On-Mower should not be used on a gradient. Even slight gradients are a bit of an issue with Ride-On-Mower, as he continues moving forwards even when he is in reverse. It was during one of these gradient sliding manoeuvres that Ride-On-Mower turned 5 Playmobile Unicorns and 4 Playmobile Princesses to small gravel sized chunks.

Ride-On-Mower has managed to redeem himself after the Playmobile attack as he can pull a modest trailer behind him. In the winter the trailer goes up to the paddock full of horse poo and returns full of logs to fuel the burner in the lounge.

Then Other Half had a great idea. Why not buy a Fly-Mower to cut the dangerous slopes? This was indeed a brilliant idea and Fly-Mower now cuts all the banks in the garden without the danger of Ride-On-Mower.

In turn, Ride-on-Mower cuts the easier flat bits of grass, Old-Mower cuts the rough areas and Self-Driven-Mower cuts the flat but more fiddly areas around the square lawns that Ride-on-Mower cannot get to. Strimmer does the really, really tricky areas that no mower can reach and also cuts around the legs of Britney’s (not her real name) swing and trampoline.

Consequently, due to the size of our Lawn Mower Collection we are contemplating constructing some sort of building to house it in. Perhaps incorporating a little viewing gallery, coffee shop and a parking area for coaches.

Visitors by appointment only.