Musings Of A Part-time Gardener

Alan from the fiction team shares his weekend of gardening

Since spring is finally here, I ventured out into the garden for the first time last weekend. The weather was glorious – well, it was mild-ish and dry – and I thought to myself, there’s no better time to start up the lawnmower and get stuck into the weeds. Like a knight sent to slay a dragon, I was up to the task . . . or so I thought.

Mowing the lawn, I actually enjoy. We have a trusty petrol mower which, like myself, sometimes grunts and groans when first waking up. But once it has started, the mower is able to tackle the lushest grass with aplomb. And as our back lawn is on a slope, the mower is a breeze to use uphill.

On this subject, how many of you use a petrol mower these days? Around our neighbourhood, it’s mostly electric lawn mowers, with a rhythmic-sounding push mower occasionally echoing in the air.

Our back lawn isn’t particularly big, and it’s certainly isn’t shaped like a perfect square or rectangle. It’s shaped more like a melted trapezium; the melted areas being the (Weeds) Zone.

In The Zone

Oh, how I detest hoeing and raking the Zone. This was the first time I had tackled the garden since October last year. So as you can imagine, the weeds were out in brute force. I knew, too, clearing them would only work short term. Give it a week or two, and the weeds would return with even more sprouting siblings, mocking this garden knight and his trusty hoe as a part-time green-fingered pretender.

So with my tasks completed, I surveyed my handiwork. Grass cut – check. Weeds slain – check. But then my heart plummeted when I looked at the garden hedge, which I swore had grown half a leaf more since the week before. And didn’t the sheds need another lick of Creocote – that foul-smelling, skin burning substance which goes under the mantle of a “preservative”.

At least I enjoy cutting the grass . . . cough, splutter, cough . . .

Have a look at even more gardening posts from our archives – no weeds there!