Sports Days

Well we seem to be on a seasonal seesaw at the moment, summer to winter, spring to autumn - well you get the picture. On those heady days when the sun has shone and the freezing rain has stopped, I’ve been able to work in the garden, which has reached my favourite stage, jungle - and what a jungle it's been.

I'm sure I mentioned before but the draught has brought torrential rain and this, mixed with the short sharp shock of sunny days, managed to create the perfect training environment for a few speedy growers to become tall and athletic. These beefed up bullies got a head start over some of the weaker individuals that missed the starting pistol and proceeded to pin these smaller competitors to the ground.  

I don’t go for minimalist chic in the garden, I’m much more of the maximalist approach, I see enough brown earth in the winter, so any spec of bare soil calls out for me to plant it.

Anyway I believe in a bit of healthy competition and love a good floral fist fight. Like a spiteful child I get a sadistic pleasure from the argy-bargy of the blooms as they wrestle over their little bit of turf, intervening only when the fight gets too dirty. I can almost hear the voice in my head sometimes shouting "fight, fight, pile on, pile on".

Maybe it’s not just the weather that has made the competition so fierce this year, possibly it’s because we are rushing headlong towards the London Olympics, I know this would explain why the lupins have grown tall and twisted like fiery torches.

 I make no apologies by the way, for the blatant Olympic analogy, especially considering the telly is full of the most tentative links by brands to this sporting event. Personally I'd be a little more excited if it was more like school sports days, imagine the branding opportunities then: the sack race with special limited addition running bags by Louis Vuitton, the egg & spoon race brought to by Tesco's finest free range eggs with silver spoons supplied by Tiffany & Co and of course, the 3 legged race in association with Hermes scarves.

Just like with any competitions these days, there seemed to be some cheating going on, the rabbits helped the Lupins by munching on all their neighbours, while the slugs favoured the lupins by devouring the delphiniums. I don't believe in chemical stimulants so artificial aids to this pest problem have been avoided no matter how tempting, but this has meant me mooching around the garden with head torch and rubber gloves late in the evening, picking slugs off  pampered plants and running around the lawn in the morning shouting at the rabbits like some sort of crazed referee.

However, no matter who was winning and how they managed it, the garden was looking fabulous, even if I do say so myself. More or less healthy, surviving the unwanted attention and rewarding all my hard work and training with a display that was medal worthy, that was until the weather threw another curve ball.

The downside of growing tall, lithe and finely tuned is that it is easy to be hamstrung by testing conditions, in this case the wind.

'Talk about your level playing field' arriving back from London yesterday I found the tearful sight of my main team lying limp, exhausted and broken in defeat where they had once stood tall and proud in victory.

Well onwards and upwards I guess it gives the B team a chance to shine.