Gardening Galore

I have been living in my house for little over a year now and to be honest, the garden looked more like an afro than a place to admire and relax. At the time I could only find opportunity to mow the lawn before the infamous winter of 2009 set in and everything turned to ice. So, this summer, during the brief spells of warmer-than-freezing weather, I set about giving my tiny plot of land a much needed face lift.

You may think I simply did this because it had to be done to prevent weeds and grass reigning supreme and preventing me from reaching the garden shed but to be honest, I did it because I enjoy it and I have a strange sense of prize over my decorative piece of land because, as I said in opening, it is something that I admire and use to relax in. So after a £50 spending spree at my nearest gardening centre, the makeover began and things are starting to look infinitely better.

Most of us can say we have fond memories of sitting in a garden during a cool summers evening with friends or family, talking, eating or just being. Would such an experience have been as pleasant if you had to trample up and down the lawn beforehand to flatten a patch of earth upon which you could place a chair, or if you couldn't put your feet down because some thorny bugger had already laid claim to that space? I doubt it.

A well kept garden is a delight, a pleasure to behold and a sneaky source of exercise in its maintenance. Even on the gloomiest of days, when everything is dark and down, I just direct my eyes through a window and feel all that much better for seeing the colourful flowers, birds pecking away at the feeder and nicely trimmer lawn. To prove to myself that this effect was genuine I spent a week looking out from my study window, at the top of the house, over into next door's garden. In the year that I have been here, nothing has been done to that garden other than someone push some weeds aside to open the shed to remove a hammer. Unwanted vegetation dominates every visible inch, an unloved rose bush competes for space with a dying tree and garden furniture has become engulfed in 4ft grass. Every day of looking over this spectacle, I felt as grey as the weather and frustrated for not being able to do anything about that mess.

Perhaps as a response to this I doubled my efforts in my garden, lashing out at anything that may have spilled over from next door to induce some sense of control and perhaps to make the neighbours jealous of the beautiful arrangements I possess at the rear of my house. If anything, I have learnt that gardening inspires the judgmental side of me.