the eye of the beholder

Walking around the garden this morning I reflected on how differently I see my own garden compared to other people's.  It compares perfectly well in terms of seasonal interest, with enough things that are supposed to flower now like the cyclamen and Japanese anemones, and promise of things to come, since the asters have barely started  The crab apples and cotoneaster berries are colouring up, and there's some decent foliage.  The dahlias and cosmos are still battling along.  The maintenance isn't up to Mapperton and Athelhampton standards, but there's only me to do the weeding, and we aren't charging people ten or fifteen grand a time for weddings.

The difference is that when I look at my own garden I'm always considering what needs to be done. It doesn't stop me enjoying the Japanese anemones, but part of my mind is simultaneously considering how hard to prune the neighbouring rose 'Fritz Nobis', and whether to make a wooden tripod for the rose for next season to prevent it flopping over the other plants.  I also noticed the pile of fallen rose leaves and petals that had collected on top of a small conifer, and made a mental note that I'd better pick them out fairly quickly before they killed the centre of the conifer.

And so on all round the garden.  The autumn sunshine made the stems of the slightly lopsided coppiced willow in the ditch bed glow an attractive shade of yellow.  I liked the effect.  That's why it's there, for the colour of its stems.  It got rather overshadowed by the native willow trees growing along the ditch, which is why it grew lopsided as it reached out towards the light and some of the stems at the back of the coppice stool died.  Even as I admired the gleaming ochre coloured bark I was noticing how far over the lawn one branch had grown, and considering how hard to cut it back, and how low the boundary willow branches had sagged over the summer, and how they'd need pruning this winter.

It's not that I don't notice maintenance issues in the gardens we visit.  Weeds, poorly looking trees, patches of wear in lawns, desire lines tracked through borders, broken labels, labels next to little blank spaces that ought to be visibly occupied at this time of the year if the plant were still alive, dead heads on dahlias.  I see them.  That doesn't mean they necessarily spoil my enjoyment of the garden.  During my time at Writtle I once mentioned to another mature student that I'd visited Great Dixter, but when her response was that she'd visited too and been disgusted by a great sow thistle in one of the borders, the number of gardeners they had, there was no excuse, I knew that we were not going to be buddies for the rest of the course.  The essence of Dixter was about so much more than whether or not there was one sow thistle in one border.

The great thing about other people's weeds and pruning issues is not that I can't see them, it's that I don't feel compelled to do anything about them.  Indeed, there can be a certain tranquillity in contemplating a problem which is not yours.