Spring Panic
On not taming spring
“Sow, prick, weed, prune, sow, prick, weed, prune”.
The gardeners’ spring mantra begins before I’ve opened my eyes. It’s the start of a long, bank holiday weekend and I already feel behind. Add to this my coven has the audacity to make plans that involve an entire day away from the garden, and I’m slipping further back before I’ve even begun.
Trying to put order into chaos is the essence of spring panic. Every year I get into a fluster trying to jump start a garden I’ve ignored for most of the winter. I’ve done a few structural things: crown-lifted trees, hedge trimmed and pruned roses but much of the garden has been left to its own devices. I’ve comforted myself that if the garden was asleep then I should be too.
What I should have done, of course, is mulched my beds in autumn (nope, bad back), started my hardy annuals (nope), sharpened my tools (did not) and washed out the poly tunnel (ha), ordered my seeds (did this!) and tidied the edges of all my beds (as if). I did very little this winter, it was just so wet and frankly, I was bored of it all. Who wants to garden in the pissing rain?
So now I’m in a pickle. I’m waking in the middle of the night with anxious dreams of people coming to judge my garden. I haven’t finished tying up all the climbing roses, the barn cats have got into my tools, knotted up all the string and knocked over all the pots, I’ve only pruned half the hydrangeas and my sowing schedule is in tatters.
What to do with all this chaos which is entirely my own fault? Normally, I’d chase my tail and try to catch up; get up with the sun and spend every spare moment in the garden, making up for lost time. But I worry about gaps and the temptation is to pop to the garden centre and fill up my pots and beds with jolly bedding plants.
This year I’m trying to embrace the chaos a little. Spring is busy but life is returning, I once had a head gardener who pompously intoned about “a busy growing season” but spring isn’t just a growing season, it’s a moment of sheer joy. The earth has turned, sap is rising and we get another go. Every year I’m reminded of the start of The Wind in the Willows, when Mole gives up domesticity to enjoy a spring day.
“The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow… Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning…”
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
I fear I’ve started to treat the start of the ‘growing season’ with the same attitude as spring cleaning, as a succession of tasks to perform and have rather lost sight of the point of it all. Even the language we use ‘tidy up the garden’, ‘cut-back’ ‘retrain’ suggests taming something wild and dangerous.
So, I am trying a more holistic approach. William Robinson (1838 – 1895) was a Victorian who rejected many of the stuffy ideas of his contemporaries. In The Wild Garden he encourages a wilder, more naturalistic approach that respects the plants’ needs and habits. In his words “Hardy flowers, once placed in fit positions, will thrive and increase without the need for further care”.
The Victorians were in the throes of a plant-importation frenzy and Robinson was despairing at the hideous, technicolour bedding schemes that were appearing. He along with the Arts & Crafts gang championed the beauty of the crafted, and the local. Naturalised flower beds filled with hollyhocks (Alcea rosea) and Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis), grass left long and studded with bulbs, woodland areas left to ramble. They encouraged managed chaos and the gardener to really look at the shape and habit of each plant and see how it interacts with the whole.
In other words, take a breath. Slow down and really look at the garden in front of you. Don’t fill every corner with cheap, imported bedding plants, think of the garden as a watercolour rather than a paint-by-numbers.
So once again, I’m stepping back. I’m letting forget-me-nots and Geranium rozanne suppress the weeds for me. If I haven’t pruned everything I’m going to pretend that I’m deliberately letting it find its optimum shape and generally embrace an air of managed chaos. After all, it’s spring, time to become an idle dog.
“Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering ‘whitewash!’ he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens.”
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Best policy - Enjoy the moment! 💚
My personal spring gardening is very limited due to living in an inner city roof apartment without balcony. But I planted mint and some cuttings of various indoor plants, and sowed some morning-glory and cannabis. Besides that I have to rely on foraging and the supermarket for my herbal needs.
No need to feel shame about doing less in your garden, it gives native plants and animals a chance to thrive.