Why We Garden?.....

I sat down to clean my desk. And yet whilst making the bed all I had in my head were direction of conversation I could lead this blog. I received an email from a family member last night questioning just what i thought I was doing with this blog. Truth is I have no idea. I guess I started it to share some of my new forays into gardening. Being in New Zealand and not having the company of either close family or friends either near by or at the end of a telephone as readily as normal, I keep having conversations with them in my head and wondering what their responses and advice would be. Particularly my Mother and Father. You see, they gardened for my entire childhood and teen years. Dad's inability to sit still or watch his favorite sporting teams lose again meant that he spent a majority of the weekend in the garden. Mum too. I, for almost 21 years managed to completely ignore this fact and I laugh about this every time I stand in the garden having absolutely NO IDEA what is going on around me. The most myself or my siblings cared about the garden was when Dad discovered fresh tyre tracks in the grass up the side of the driveway when one of his learner driver children had driven too fast and too recklessly up it. The tirade and the wielding of the rake was enough for us to promise we would never do it again. Having said that the tyre track never really disappeared or recovered until some years after all of us had long since chased our lives to other areas of the globe. The same was true of the gardenias, or was it the hydrangeas.....Yes the hydrangeas AND the agapanthus. Both these plants lined the before mentioned driveway and were the first casualties when one tried to squeeze their bike at speed between the parked car and the three foot of space on the other side. A space that unfortunately was shared with a collection of both flowers. If Mum was thinking strategically, she should have planted rose bushes there instead. That would have stopped us outright. There was another unfortunate plant that was involved in the madness but the name escapes me. I am sure Mum will refresh my memory. In my mind I see constantly projected images that span nearly two decades of Mum or Dad and sometimes both standing in the kitchen holding the sliced head of a hydrangea or an agapantha in their hands saying 'How many times must we tell you NOT to kill the HYDRANGEAS'. The truth is, and my brother will back me up, if you lined them up and hit them at just the right speed, the head would lop off in one clean move. A talent my parents never did truly appreciated, or knew about for that matter.
This blog is a poor substitute to exorcise the one sided conversations in my head that I have with my family members that aren't around as much as I would like them to be. Don't get me wrong, I love my gypsy life I have lead to this point with my partner and (although I am not keen on the word) fiance. Sorry don't know how to do a little accent over the e. We love our life in Wellington, New Zealand. We love the house we have somehow convinced a lovely couple to rent us and above all we love our inherited garden. Yes I wish I knew more about it...But that's just it. That's part of the education I hope to document here. In the last 48 hours I have learnt so much about lawn....But that is for another blog. I think the lawn is fighting back...for those that care.
I do have a fine collections of what will become my in-laws that have been fantastic in trying to get us up to speed with garden and lawn management. They are all blessed with living on beautiful rolling acres in Auckland and as a result are armed with a wealth of knowledge of how to look after it. I had a guided tour of my own garden by my Mother-in-law to be. I learned terms like 'leggy' and was informed how to stop a plant, or flower from wasting it's food and energy by cutting of the older bits. Yes, I am sure there are gardeners out there rolling eyes, but you have to remember these are new concepts for the gardening challenged. I am still amazed the stick she stuck in the empty flower pot has sprout a little green bulb on it over the last two days. I thought she was joking when she said it would grow. But there it is. And so I keep writing this blog.
Yes I, Mr dying grass man as my brother calls me, only have 5 followers, everyone single one of which I know very well. No, nothing on your 218 follow.
If I was looking for followers then maybe I would write a blog on my life in the film industry. About cuing De Niro to walk into a cafe, about standing shoulder to shoulder with Captain Dale Dye as we send 120 of his 'Marines' across an explosive laden set that will become Peleliu, about Lucas asking me where to put R2D2 when I absent mindedly stood next to him in Matmata, Tunisia. But I can't. I have signed so many confidentiality agreements in my life that I doubt I'll ever be able to write about my career. So instead, I'll write this. My gardening blog. And love doing it and maybe god forbid I'll learn something in the process.