The Impatient Gardener, previously known as Miss Moble, has been wielding a shovel in her garden of late. She finds it much easier digging there than on fence lines, unsurprisingly. Where she gardens was once her Great-Grandmother’s old vegetable garden and the soil is sublime: rather like cutting butter, the shovel glides through the soil to full depth and feels and smells as delicious.
She has shifted her Peach tree, not by far but as we know, a few feet can make all the difference with a tree’s position. I see she has cunningly left it hemmed under the clothesline though, I fear for her Hill’s Hoist as I know its days are numbered. They are so practical, fit-for-purpose to their wind- up handle, however in her smallish (for now) plot it does rather dominate. If a chainsaw could cut through steel pipe, it would have been lopped months ago. As I write, I fancy I can hear an angle grinder whining and soon the unmistakable whoosh of another clothesline biting the dust. The sound of Urban Clearing. I daresay there is legislation about it somewhere. After all, we do need to dry our sheets.
She has filled her garden beds to the point of expansion and last week, as we strolled around together, we discussed widening them to a new line, softening some curves here and there. It thrills and deeply satisfies me to talk gardens with my children, I feel I am passing a branch of the Tree of Life down to another generation. I hope they can find the inspiration, joy and peace that gardening has given me.
Her enthusiasm is quite daunting, and she is far more ruthless in the garden than I was when starting out. Perhaps I should not be surprised by this as the girls have always danced to their own tune. When they were both at University, she and Miss London were left in charge of Moble for a few weeks in what turned out to be truly fearful conditions. Together they were pushing scrub to feed stock and checking waters by day and then chasing hoses through the night, keeping two big gardens going here in relentless mid-forty temperatures. On our arrival home, I walked around the garden amazed at how well everything looked. Even had I been home, there would have been losses and so, incredulous, I enquired how they had done it all? A few quick glances and their secret of success was revealed… anything that died, they simply pulled out and burnt.
Certainly, the Impatient Gardener has not found her raking-gravel zen as yet. She strides around asking why that patch of lawn has not filled in? When will the Passionfruit be ripe? Why has the Olive tree shot from that side? Will it fruit this year? Why not? Well, when will it? That Long!
Then, as we move around to admire a patch of succulents, beautifully thick and happily spreading their little purple baskets of florets, she waves her hand and tells me she is shifting them and planting something else in that spot; I realise she has well and truly caught the gardening bug and has started on her eternal chase.
I wish you could see her garden, it is truly sensational, brimming with health and vitality, just like its creator. If a garden could laugh, this one would, so happily does it sit in the landscape, nestled under some lovely trees and giving on to the spectacular waterhole. However, as with gardeners through the ages, the Impatient Gardener is now seeing her garden through her plans in her head, she sees what she dreams of doing rather than all she has accomplished. The rather fun thing about gardening is that, by and large, you can keep dreaming and creating. You are only limited by your back and energy.
I think the fence is coming down after the passionfruit have ripened and new lawns are planned beyond. I cannot wait to see it all unfold and taste some fruit from this lovely garden.
Happy Birthday to my Impatient Gardener,
The Moble Gardener.
