Green Fingers

"Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth 
seeking the successive autumns." 


George Eliot

I am not really a natural gardener. Well I’m not really a tried or tested gardener so I don’t know. I can appreciate flowers and their contribution to making the world a much prettier and better place but I have never been driven to plant any myself.

I have grown mustard and cress in eggshells with the kids and enjoyed seeing it grow but struggle to remember to water a plant or move the herbs to reach the light…it doesn’t come naturally.

 

So, the garden was a mess. The front is the kid’s garden and the grass was embarrassingly long with the path invisible below the sheet of leaves. The back is the grown-up garden and the tables and concrete slabs were a bed of huge fig leaves and another type of leaf that comes from the big tree with yellow flowers in the middle.

 

When we first moved to this house, we had gardeners come and spend the morning sorting it out as the house had been empty for some time and the garden neglected. Having lived in apartments without gardens for some years, we knew we needed some help as we really didn’t know where to start and they did a fabulous job of clearing it all up and making it look presentable. My husband has worked on it over the summer, my in laws and my parents always insist on doing something to it when they come but now with my husband up to his eyes in work, weekends vanishing in a blink and my increasing feelings of guilt about our neighbour’s view from their window, I decided action must be taken!

 

After digging around in the surprisingly clean and spider free shed, I found a rake and a big garden looking brush, asked my three year old son how Papa uses the lawnmower (he was amazingly knowledgeable and on his advice alone, I worked out everything!) and three hours later, I am surveying our handiwork with pride!

 

My son loved the afternoon – getting his hands dirty, collecting up bundles of leaves and grass, finding bugs and being the ‘one who knew’ what to do! My daughter enjoyed around half an hour and then got bored and this fortunately coincided with her afternoon sleep. Still, if she takes after her mother, this behaviour will continue for approximately 27 more years.

 

I should have known that autumn would be the season that coaxed my inner gardener from wherever it has lain dormant for all these years. I have always had a soft spot for this season that is so reliable year in, year out. Autumn keeps it promise – the leaves turn yellow, gold, red and orange without fail and when the sun shines, it highlights the sensational colours nature produces in the otherwise traumatic death of summer beauty. I can’t kill anything, as it is already dead. Summer may be a wash out, spring may be rainy, winter may not bring the hope of snow but autumn, autumn makes the loss of summer a transition we can all accept as she does it so graciously and without fuss.

 

The mowing reminded me of doing a buzz cut on an enormous head and I had a great time of making patterns and playing in the grass (‘Papa doesn’t do it like that, he goes in straight lines’ Shhh, whatever!). I loved doing the final sweep up and took immense satisfaction in the enormous change my efforts had produced. I felt like He-man carrying the slide, the loungers and moving the wendy house as my son directed me to where they would be best left whilst I mowed and raked that part of the garden.

 

My son. The best bit had to be my son’s face as he realised that he had contributed so absolutely to the finished result and I was so proud of the three-hour concentration he had managed so effortlessly.

 

The next best bit is still to come…my husband’s face when he realises that he no longer needs to worry as I have done the job lingering over our heads for so long and he can relax without that nagging feeling of getting it done!

 

I celebrated my new found green fingers with some beautiful flowers from the shop chosen by my son. On my journey, I couldn’t help but notice all the leaves on the river path and I was itching to run home, grab my brush and clear every last one of those pesky leaves up…another cleaning OCD to add to my ever growing list….at least this one is seasonal!