Garden Delight

I did it! I had been wanting to do this for quite some time now. Finally, I terminated the services of my long time gardener. When I say 'gardener', I use the term loosely. I paid him a monthly fee to come and tend to the yard - mow the lawn and generally tidy up. I don't think he actually knew anything about the plants and trees in the yard. Pushing around a lawn mower and the ability to use the trimmer and weed whacker do not constitute real gardening skills. He was an accidental gardener. For all I know, he might have been an accountant or a teacher in Vietnam before he migrated. But the steep learning curve in mastering the English language probably made it difficult to enter those kinds of jobs. At least that's my theory.

I did not actually hire this man in case you are wondering about that. The one that I had before him took on a job with a landscaping company and brought him on as a replacement. You may ask why I kept him on for so long. I confess I didn't have the heart to fire him. Actually, I quite liked the man. He was a genial person with a broad smile all the time. A most cheerful man, I would say. The problem was that my amazing facility with English (!) was of no use when trying to explain to him what I needed done. I could never be sure what he would end up doing. Even with this severe limitation, things might have been alright if he was an accomplished gardener. As I mentioned before, he was not. 

He had a firm belief that any plant that had managed to reach a certain threshold height had earned the right to keep growing. As a result, many a weed managed to gain a foothold in my yard. Ivy has taken over much of the ground under the fruit trees and has started to climb them. He even fertilized a patch that looked green but was just full of weeds after a good spell of rain. I had to turn off the water to that area to keep them from flourishing but they are still going strong. After all, this is their native territory and the plants that we try to grow are really the intruders.

I used to devote some time to the care of the plants and did succeed in my efforts to an extent. But over the last few years, I had been really busy with work and had neglected the garden. I noticed that the rose bushes had stopped looking like bushes and had few or no flowers during the last couple of years. Those that put out a lot of new growth did not produce flowers. I don't want to bore you with details but grafted roses may put out new canes or branches called suckers (follow this link if you are curious about this) which typically will not produce blooms. The growth I was looking at was from suckers which, I am sure, the gardener had failed to remove no doubt because they looked so healthy. 

My mother used to be quite interested in gardening. My father would get transferred every two or three years, and so we lived in rented houses. These usually had some fruit trees and a coconut palm or two. My mother would plant a vegetable garden if a decent patch of earth was available. It was fun to watch the different vegetable as they came up - brinjal (eggplant), ladies' fingers (okra), beans, etc. There were gourd varieties too - some growing on the ground, others requiring a trellis or a little pandal. The snake gourd had to be weighted with a little stone to keep it growing straight. It was a daily ritual to measure its length or count the other vegetables but we were told not to do that as that invited the evil eye and could stunt the growth. 

Evil eye was not the only danger to ward off. The house usually had a compound wall or fence and a gate to keep the stray cattle out. Occasionally someone would forget to close the gate and a stray cow or goat would get in and eat the plants much to our consternation. The plants were also vulnerable to pests. We used to apply fertilizer and pesticide from time to time but I remember that these were always the organic kind. I don't recall ever using any chemicals.

The obvious payoff of course was the ability to harvest and enjoy the vegetables and share some with neighbours but just seeing the plants come up and flourish was exciting and satisfying. When we moved, there was a tinge of sadness in leaving behind a garden. Usually we moved during summer when the garden had not been planted. One time we had to move just as the plants were in full bloom and about to set fruit. This was very disappointing to all of us but especially to my mother. She talked about it for months after we moved. I can still recall the long row of brinjal plants with beautiful  purple flowers we left behind.

I think my mother's enthusiasm rubbed off on me to some extent. But I certainly don't have the dedication she had. I generally stick to perennials which would bloom year after year while requiring minimal care. I hired a gardener to take care of the lawn, the sprinklers, etc. as I did not want to invest in all the equipment needed and take on their maintenance. As for vegetables, I was not ready to commit to the time and effort they require. After spotting a couple of bunnies cavorting in the yard, I decided that it would be too difficult anyway to keep the plants from being eaten by them. But I am glad that I planted some fruit trees such as this pomegranate which have been giving us their bounty faithfully every year. 

All in all, I have been satisfied with the whole experience. Except now, all of a sudden, I have been rudely awakened to the deterioration even though it has been going on under my very nose for quite a while. The perennials have withered over the years, the roses have become scraggy or bloomless, and the lawn  is either bare or overgrown with weeds. I wistfully recall the purple and red fuchsia that I used to have in the front yard. It is time to focus my efforts once again on the yard. The first thing to do of course was to replace the gardener. With a heavy heart, I told him that I no longer needed his services. The new gardener seems knowledgeable and I am hoping that I will soon have a colourful garden again.