‘And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden’.
(Rudyard Kipling. The glory of the garden 1911)
In the Beginning…..one fights jungles of brambles and nettles, have tugs of war with bindweed vines, uproot endless varieties of weeds, by hand and hoe I might add, prune back trees clip back hedges and that’s just the start of it. Hosts of insects and diseases must be dealt with and the Rubbish cleared away, then the Hard work starts 😱 .
I bet you thought that was it, ROFL.. Nope that’s just clearing a very untidy/ overgrown garden, ready to prepare and fill with love, scents, colour and LIFE….
In the end, it’s all worth it….
You don’t need a degree in horticulture, you don’t need Alan Titchmarsh and his team of miracle workers….ALL you need is a love of life, nature, and time and patience to create your own little Eden.
Many of my clients are ‘amateur’ gardeners, so their gardens, when I start working on them are a little bit ‘wild’ and have no dignity..The bewildered look on the owners face when they ‘show’ me around, cracks me up..They don’t know where to start.
Over a period of about 4 weeks, hard work, sweat and tears, the garden, with its dignity back, starts to repay the gardener and its owner with living scented jewels.. With a one day a week tidy up and the owner watering and tendering odds and ends a couple of times a week helps maintain the garden and it’s splendour.
If you can’t afford a gardener a couple of times a month, Don’t stress, you can still maintain it by yourself…..the rewards are great. The work, the fresh air, sunlight, and achievement of your first blooms and fruit or veg, produced with your own hands and sweat, will give you a sense of pride you will not be able to explain..
If your a beginner, THINK FIRST of Yourself. Garden work, when you are not accustomed to it leaves a heavy tiredness and you can’t sleep it off. Too much incentive to get it all done as soon and as quick as possible, will be replaced by fatigue that could kill off your interest to finish the task and the result will be …….
A Garden without a Gardner and a Gardner without a Garden…
Whatever your garden my look like now, it’s potentialities are already there and you can make of it what you will.
So, set yourself a…………..
Time limit….(example…..this needs to be done in 2 weeks)
Daily Goal. ……. limit yourself to a couple of hours a day and work towards increasing it …At Your Pace……..
May I also suggest a few common-sense precautions?
Wear sensible old clothes…..I prefer baggy jeans or track suit pants and baggy t-shirt.
In the hot months, cover your exposed parts with a strong factor sun blocker, especially the back of your neck….oh and the area on your lower back between your waist band and up under your shirt…I often forget and end up with a brown strip, quite hilarious when your in the nude 😱😂😂😂😂
Avoid piling the wheelbarrow to capacity…..your back Will Not Thankyou.
Rest at intervals and hydrate yourself with fluids.
Take care when moving or lifting heavy bags or machinery. If it’s too heavy….yell for help….
It’s your health that’s important ….
And Now…..start creating your Eden……🌳🌹🌾🌻🌸🌺🌿
After those ‘wise words’ of wisdom……I wish you all the best..
I will however be blogging on garden tips and will paste the links below…..So be sure to pop back and catch up….
Please feel free to ask questions and advice…I can’t promise I can solve everything, but I can at least pass on what I know and have learnt over the past 15 years of gardening…….Well….come to think of it I have been an avid gardener since I was 5 years old. So, one could say its 5 years short of half a century of loving every minute i have spent bent over a spade, hands covered in soil, rescuing earthworms and popping them in my Worm Farm…yep I seriously do have one….its AMAZING…….. And exhausting myself near enough to death more than I would like…the pain, the bruises, the weather……Is All worth it in the end…..
Common, Mad and just Plain Simple ...... 