Some people regard gardening as a hobby. For Jane Powers it's a demanding, even back-breaking compulsion
"Gardening is such a relaxing hobby."
Who are the people who say these things? They're not gardeners, that's who they are. First of all, gardening is not a hobby. Hobbies don't make you surge out of the bed in a lather of panic and guilt in mid-March because you haven't sown a single seed yet this season. Hobbies don't cover you with shame because your lawn has turned into a balding dandelion patch and the vegetable beds into a lush weedscape. Hobbies don't leave you feeling at a certain point every year that you really have missed the train and that it's disappearing around the bend.
Gardening is frustrating (when something has eaten all the buds off your hellebores), boring (when you're shredding spring prunings for the compost heap) and hard work (lifting, dragging, digging, chopping), and a lot of it is outdoor housekeeping (scrubbing pots, sweeping steps, cleaning the greenhouse).
If it's such a pain in the neck, you might ask, why do it? We do it because we have to. Most of us who grow things do so because it's a compulsion, as pressing as the need to eat and drink or to have children (and when was the last time you heard someone say that was a relaxing hobby?).
Sure, gardening gives deep pleasure: the simple act of helping a plant to grow is thrilling and satisfying - and you will never be closer to nature than when you are trying to fit in with earth's cycles and seasons.
But, more than that, gardening plugs a gap in our lives. I'm sure it's no coincidence that some of the most compulsive gardeners are childless or have finished child rearing. Not to garden makes us feel incomplete - as well as a little bit disconsolate and quite a bit grumpy.
Or that's how I feel when I'm prevented from gardening because I'm too busy, too lazy or too tired. (Like all soil workers, I echo Charles Dudley Warner's sentiment: "What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.")
The troubled brain of the compulsive gardener craves the tranquillising effect of a neatly mulched bed or a row of seed trays lined up on the windowsill under their little polythene hats.
The problem is that this warm, soupy feeling never lasts. The birds scrape away the mulch, the weeds sprout and the well-behaved seed trays erupt in mounds of seedlings clamouring for attention.
If something isn't done pretty pronto, it all speeds away, carried along by the unstoppable process of growth. The weeds take over, the seedlings die - or rush into premature and stunted adulthood - and the gardener feels inadequate and in an extremely bad mood. This sort of thing is not relaxing.
But the gardening compulsion has a built-in device that keeps you hooked: the "well, there's always next year" clause. Yet my predicament right now is that it already is the next year I promised myself last year. And I'm terrified of missing the train again. Because, like many compulsive gardeners, I get too foolishly optimistic at the start of the year; I get too much going, make too many plans, imagine I'm far more powerful than I am.
So, because I really do want this year to be different, I'm going to remind myself yet again of some useful old cliches. They're about as exciting as a pair of dull and serviceable shoes, but they might keep me running alongside the garden train instead of pounding along behind. (And as nobody but a fellow compulsive gardener will have travelled this far on the page with me, perhaps you could use them also.)
HOW NOT TO LOSE THE PLOT
Little and often We all put in the big bouts on weekends and days off, but don't underestimate the accumulative effect of 10 minutes before breakfast and other snatched moments.
Don't bite off more than you can chew When you start a long stint in the garden, mentally mark out a patch or a job to work on during that session. Concentrate on the task in hand and don't be flitting around dreamily. Finish what you start and you'll head back indoors with a fine feeling of accomplishment.
Clean as you go Tidy everything away as you go along or when you've finished. It may mean stopping early, but it's better than a garden awash with old prunings, dead pots, misplaced tools and bags of this and that.
Be ruthless If a plant is chronically unhealthy, past its best or in the wrong place, get rid of it. And, for goodness' sake, do not become a hospital for other people's sick plants.
Grow only what you like Caring for plants you don't like is an obvious waste of time and energy, but it's amazing how many Brussels-sprouts- haters end up growing their least-favourite vegetable when they could be growing strawberries instead.
Curb your impulses Don't buy plants unless they suit your garden's conditions and you have a place for them. Many is the tree fern that has died in the pot it was bought in.
The green-fingered myth It's the beady eye rather than the green finger that makes plants grow happy and healthy. Vigilance is a gardener's best tool, followed by the workaday implements of forward planning and record keeping.
Stand on your head Or just bend over and look at the garden upside down. The fresh view makes you see things you've missed from your usual stance, letting you assess what's right and what's wrong. (Go on, try it.)
Next time will be different If you missed the moment of opportunity this year, don't worry, another will be one along in a while. And relax. There's always next year.
HELP ANOTHER CHELSEA STAR
Garden designer Elma Fenton would like to remind readers that Diarmuid Gavin isn't the only Irish person bringing a show garden to Chelsea Flower Show next month. Fenton's Moat and Castle eco-garden features a canal-shaped natural swimming pond abutted by an orchard, meadow and coppiced hazel grove. Just like Gavin (but without all the publicity of Marian Finucane's radio show), Fenton is looking for people to help build the garden. There's no pay, no accommodation and no travel allowance - but there is the thrill of working for a week during the build-up to the great flower show. So far the garden has been promised donations of plants and materials from Sap Nurseries, Nangle & Niesen Trees, Manor Stone and Design by Nature. But more funds are needed. Because the garden has a sustainability theme, Fenton hopes it will have a life after Chelsea, in a hospital or similar location. She'd love to meet a like-minded sponsor who would fund such a venture, so seeing lasting benefits from its generosity. If you can help, contact Fenton at 01-4977311 or through www.ellenlandscape designs.com.