The Old Man – Garden Gate Flowers

This week I learnt that plans are afoot for the 2022 Open Gardens Day in the village. I have been told the date (confidentially), but as it probably needs to go through the usual committees and organisational debates, I am not allowed to say what it is. But suffice to say, we are all excited here at the Midlife Garden to think that we might be making our debut in the biannual village event. The Open Gardens Day is an opportunity to raise money for charity, while giving villagers the chance to enjoy the gardens of their near neighbours. But we all know what it really is: it is the Village Horticultural Olympics.

With the date set for next summer I was motivated to get going on preparation for big day. Initially, I needed to take stock of the current state of the garden. Is it under control? What has grown well and what has failed?

The mid-season performance review has not been positive. Yes, visitors to the Midlife Garden have been extremely complimentary on the state of the beds but, like a British Olympian crying over gaining a bronze medal instead of a gold, I see failure all around me. The broad beans that I did not tie up properly or keep weeded; the kohl Rabi that got eaten by slugs; and the kale that has struggled under the same onslaught, until I belatedly sunk beer traps. The late and lacklustre crops of cosmos and sweet peas and the negligible numbers of sugar snap and ordinary peas. It has not been a classic year. The review reads like the inquest into British Rowing. Ok, millions of lottery funds leading to five 4th place finishes and a lack of gold medals sounds might sound more serious in comparison to the Midlife Garden – but your opinion would change if you could see how the bindweed has clogged the echinacea or saw the total failure of this year’s Rudbeckia Marmalade.

While underperforming athletes are pointing to tough lockdown training conditions, in the Midlife Garden we have had to contend with the weird weather of a cold dry April, followed by a wet and windy May and then flaming June. Plants have struggled to adapt. But ultimately, I need to take a long hard look at my systems and procedures. I need to improve my funding and support for these plants and apply my experience to plan and monitor performance.

In short: I need to be more like The Old Man. Suddenly his insistence on slavishly doing things to a strict and regimented timetable seems laudable, contrasting with my approach which at times borders on laisser-faire.

But the impending announcement of an Open Gardens Day has provided fresh impetus in my gardening. In my thirties I used to run regularly, but rarely for the sake of getting fit: I needed a goal over and above the simple essential of BEING fit. Which is why I regularly entered half marathons and even one wet and windy marathon in Dublin (finishing time: 3 hrs 43 minutes, thank you for asking). Training for an event was what kept me focused and committed. So now, in a summer in which I have been, at times, going through the motions in horticultural terms, I find I have something specific to plan for, and I need to get going.

So, biennials are frantically being sown (a month late) and more hardy annuals are being purchased for autumn planting. It seems a long way off, but time will fly, and as Auden wrote:

“We are left alone with our day, And the time is short and History to the defeated May say alas but cannot help or pardon”.

The snow returned on the weekend of the 17th / 18th March. This time it fell benignly and softly, covering everything overnight in a thick white insulating layer.

And overnight my father finally passed away: quietly and peacefully in his sleep. The falling snow created an atmosphere of tranquility and peace. His much-loved garden, the one that I had naively blundered around in and tried to maintain, was mothballed in a mute downy blanket. It seemed apt and the garden looked far more beautiful with its cloak of snow than it otherwise would do at this time of year.

The Old Man had become increasingly frail to the point that G had recently suggested that we might wheel him one last time down his garden. I am glad we did not as the garden now – at this time of year – was no way for him to see it. It was better that it remained in his mind as the veg patch on which he grew some of the best peas you are likely to see.

The creeping stranglehold of COPD had robbed him of breath and energy, and his ability to even stand, let alone walk was so diminished we were seriously thinking of trying to move him to external care in a hospice or community hospital. With this in mind it was a blessed relief when he slipped away at home, in a room overlooking the garden. The snow drifted down to cover the barren veg patch, the leafless trees and the ragged borders. Instead all was softness and conformity as he lay quietly in bed, at ease for the first time in what seemed an age.

With his passing comes the end of an era. He had designed and created this garden, alongside our mother and with the sometimes less than willing help of their sons. He had lived here for 42 years. It is difficult to imagine this 6.509 acres of Somerset not being under his control. Even in his last 24 hours he was taking visitors and handing down instructions like the Pope or a Roman Emperor. We waited in the kitchen while he talked to Aubrey about what he was going to do with the field this year. He wanted to know from Jim how the garden was going, now that I had relinquished my role. I spent a little time with him on that Saturday and was going to drop in on Sunday, but Nick’s phone call early Sunday told me it was not going to be the type of visit I had been expecting.

Instead we had to organise the confirmation of death which our good neighbourly GP friend did. She trudged across the fields with her dog (The Old Man would have been amused by that). The Funeral Director came to remove TOM. I did not want to see this bit. Dad was so peaceful in bed – I wanted that to be my final sight of him. I had witnessed my mother leaving the house eleven years before – in a wheelchair – to die in hospital three days later. Thankfully that indignity was not visited on The Old Man and I am pleased that he was able to pass away within sight of his garden – the garden that had given him so much pride and joy.