2 November 2005
CdP
November 1 is the public holiday when Italians in their millions take to their cars and rush to the family plot at the ancestral cemetery to lay flowers on the graves of the dearly departed. It helps if the avi had the foresight to be buried in some pretty place in the mountains or picturesque seaside resort. Or at the very least near an excellent trattoria. And then if a handy Indian summer kicks in for what can usually be stretched to a ponte Ð that terribly civilised Italian trick of in-filling between weekends and mid-week holidays to create a long long weekend Ð then it becomes a regular half-term break (something, incidentally, that Italian schools donÕt have) and last chance to soak in some rays before the chill sets in.
I, naturally, rushed to Umbria where L had whisked his visiting stepfather some days previously to get him out of our cramped Roman flat, and from where L had been calling me regularly with odd queries about how to handle the new lawn mower. Well, it wasnÕt so much that the queries were oddÉ it was just odd that he could be spending quite so long mowing. I mean, what was there to mow? Three tiny patches of summer-sown grass around the house. Plus that bit up above the caravan which I have declared mowable, even though it barely qualifies as lawn Ð more less-rough-than-usual field. Hardly more than a quarter of an hourÕs labour, I would have thought. My anxiety grew with every call. But so did my self-control. At least so I like to think.
Being The Garden Person in a husband-and-wife team fixing up a property can, naturally, cause friction. I think of it, I admit, as MY garden. Which my family, of course, is more than welcome to use. Even to make comments on, as long as they are complimentary, admiring, adoring, awe-struck kind of comments. I have more or less given up trying to interest spouse and daughter in working in the garden. IÕd like to think that this is because IÕm a generous, understanding person, not wishing to foist my own hobbies on others; but in my heart of hearts itÕs because, I know, that in the end I become unbearable. Out there in my territory, I expect them not only to do precisely what I want but I want them to be able to read my mind too, so I donÕt have to waste valuable gardening time explaining my dreams and visions. To me, this seems perfectly reasonable. To them, less so. And so, for the sake of family harmony Ð and also, in part, because I love my solitary hard labour, which allows me so much musing time Ð I dig and weed and plant myself. What goes wrong is my fault. What comes right, I can gloat overÉ if only to myself because L and C can now spot a gloat coming on from miles away, and tend to make themselves scarce in order to avoid it.
Much of what I did over the weekend of i morti Ð the dead Ð will, IÕm afraid, go down under the heading Òwhat goes wrongÓ. Sometimes, after the event, I take a critical look at myself and think Òwhy do you do this? If this were someone elseÕs garden, you would have drawn out every inch; you would have worked and reworked patterns and plans; you would know exactly Ð or as exactly as feasible, given that youÕre working with something as strong-willed as nature Ð what the end result was going to be.Ó So why, I ask myself, have I spent two days sticking random bulbs in the ground?
Well, random is perhaps too strong a word. I had given it some thought. I had spent many evenings studying my mouth-watering catalogue from the French seed nursery Baumaux (www.baumaux.com), had overcome the initial hard-to-suppress feeling of Òyes, IÕll have them all!Ó and had carefully selected certain varieties of daffodils, tulips and irises for very particular sites. I had carefully rolled back the thin sheets of fibre fleece which have so effectively been keeping my plantless topsoil in place on slopes through hail, rain and shine, and I had made dozens of little pointy sticks which I had artfully stuck at precise intervals to indicate where my roses will go. Then, having done all this careful preparation, I whacked the bulbs in any old how. After which I began to think Òhad those huge red tulips been planted in a very rigid square right there in the middle of that bed of parchment-coloured roses, it would have been so impressiveÓ. ÒAnd what if IÕd made a diagonal slash in blue irises through those claret-coloured roses over there?Ó As it is, my bulbs will, if they come up, be random. But they will also be much more easily findable, and will be yanked up after the first year and placed more dramatically. If I remember.
And I still have the daffodils to plant. I know just what eye-catching formation the daffodils will take: a thin band running at mid-height right along the whole length of the long, steep, shallow bank that bends around the south and eastern sides of the chicken house. In this case, a mixture of yellow and white daffodils of various heights and forms will push their way through a sea of yellow roses, a tribute to my husband who for years put up with my filling the flat with red roses before telling me that he really preferred yellow.
For various reasons, I left the daffodils until last. Firstly, because they are sure to be the most difficult to plant: on this particular bank, there is no new topsoil and what there was had mostly washed away, leaving a daunting wall of exposed stones. (I carefully chose daffodil varieties described as Ôexcellents pour rocaillesÕ, and Ð eternal optimist that I am Ð focussed my hopes on the great soil between the stones.) Secondly, because the daffodils are the most numerous, and with the clocks going back to winter time, I simply wouldnÕt have had to time get them all in the ground on Sunday before we were plunged into that miserable, damp, depression-enhancing penumbra of winter evenings at about 5pm. Thirdly, to plant the daffodils, I would have had to either trample my most recently planted grass seeds, or cling, goat-like and inelegant, to to bank itself while I tried to force the bulbs into the rocky ground. And lastly, such close proximity to those tiny struggling grass sprouts would have brought me too painfully close to what my well-meaning husband had been mowing.
It was partially my fault. I mean, I should really have cleared the ground better before I planted. I removed all the nasty looking weeds, but left some of that grass which is seeding itself everywhere. It was quite short when I left it. But by the time L got up there, dying to try out the new lawnmower, it was long, large and looked like it was in need of a cut. He didnÕt even notice the green haze of little seedlings between, hardly two centimetres high. So he mowed the lot. I had suspected, as those phone calls kept coming, that he might have been doing just that and I tried, tactfully, to suggest that he should keep his great feet and the lawnmower off the results of my blister-inducing labour. But IÕm sensitive about appearing holier-than-thou in the garden; my hints were not, I realised when I got up there, unsubtle enough. My first impulse, of course, was to throttle him. But after many deep breaths, I realised that one of the questions he hadnÕt asked me Ð perhaps because he didnÕt realise it was possible Ð was how to lower the mower blade; it was set at its highest and probably barely touched most of the grass seedlings. The ground was firm; he wasnÕt mulching the sprouts down into soggy, clinging mud. Maybe, maybe, my grass will survive. Probably my marriage will too.