4.7
(40)

It happens to be the time of year when I have to ask Everedge whether they want to renew their financial support for thinkingardens.   Given the battering so many companies have taken due to the coronavirus I wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t.

And this year, due to the coronavirus we may not open the garden. The Welsh government is still keeping us all in lockdown with no indication of when that will change, if it will at all this summer.

And truth to tell, I feel ambivalent about both these things, so I’m  writing to help clear my thoughts and to discover what help in clarifying my thoughts you, my readers, may have to offer.

I often wonder how people doing the kind of things I do ever retire – I know people abandon gardens and even leave gardens but that would be entirely outside my nature, and I think, Charles’s. Whatever else, we will keep the garden going, because we love it and it’s good for us. We have no children so ultimately we could mortgage the house in order to stay on.

The current upkeep is expensive and we have, like everyone, lost money due to the coronavirus, but we have recognised that staying here and keeping the garden are priorities. Opening the garden may not be. It may take a change of perspective – at the moment, facing the huge cost of replacing the box hedging we tell ourselves we need to because it’s our business. Visitors need this change, we have standards to maintain for them. But we could begin to think differently. That we need to do this for ourselves, to keep our garden alive and improving, and to stop the heartache of seeing box blight.  That we maintain the garden as we maintain the house, because decay and degeneration are miserable.

I think Charles quite likes us having garden visitors. He enjoys welcoming them and talking with them. Flirting with them sometimes, I bet. But we both know I find it hard – I’m naturally shy and find it stressful. I realised, going round the garden this morning, that I was feeling some relief that I wasn’t needing to try and see it through a critical visitor’s eyes. Which is always a challenge, since it’s hard to imagine what they see, how they judge, what they enjoy or dislike. But of course, I do try to imagine it and that informs how I see the garden myself. It’s not easy just to take pleasure in it. (See my post on the Veddw blog)  Charles has a book contract and no intention of giving up photography, so I doubt he’d much miss the openings. It would free up his time.

Opening the garden is an activity which is never resolved. We never know whether we are successful or not because there is no definitive measure. There are a variety of measures, but they go different ways, veering from one side to another – cheering us with success then dashing us with failure. Always, all the time. It’s bruising – but if we stopped opening, would we miss the highs? Or would we just feel relieved to stop getting bashed?

The same applies to thinkingardens. It too is a lot of work. And the upkeep of the site is costly. The garden is both mental and physical work. Thinkingardens is less healthy. It’s desk work. And a lot of it and a constant pressure, finding contributors, rejecting contributors, (sorry) discussing contributions with them, editing and posting their work – and illustrating it, which can be a nightmare. Then publicising the post on social media. And worrying about whether anyone is reading it.

As with the garden there’s no way of really knowing if it’s worthwhile. I am constantly pleased that there is a place where dissent and controversy have a voice. But I’m constantly reminded that that is not what the garden world wants. It wants positive and plants. Or, as one editor said to me, to shut me up, ‘I think they still want where to and how to, Anne.’ People are engaged with their own gardens and don’t generally approach gardens as they would a film, a book or a concert – to enjoy, to be stimulated, excited. Garden visitors are possibly mostly mentally competing (a weed!!!) or embellishing their own gardens (what’s that plant?) and I imagine that their garden reading is informed generally by the same preoccupations.

So what do I know I definitely want in my future? Well, I want to write. I have always loved writing, just as I don’t love gardening. I want to research and write local history, and that is getting side-lined, even in the lockdown. (the weather has kept us outside).  I actually also love writing about the garden, sometimes even about plants, and no longer need a paper publisher to have an audience. (and joy – unlike the audiences you get on paper, the ones online can answer back.)

But the need to publicise the garden and to promote the garden can make this into a pressure too. And an anxiety – I should be writing positively and encouraging you all to think the garden is amazing. (or at least ‘lovely’). And not make you feel bad because you really like turning your compost heap or edging your lawn. It would be liberating if I really didn’t care if everyone decided they’d never want to visit Veddw.

And liberating if I didn’t care either if I never got published on paper again. I’ve mostly stopped reading garden writing or watching any garden media because I find the relentless positivity, banality and compost heaps hard and confrontative. What if I’d been able to write like that?  Would I have felt successful? (Note – “The merely egotistical satisfactions of fame are easily nullified by a toothache” George Eliot) So, can I free myself from all of that, altogether, for good? That would be a comfort.

So – would anyone take over thinkingardens if I gave it up? Volunteer for it, anyone? It could possibly be made to pay under a different, energetic and more err.. positive? editor? Shall I stop, anyway? I think this is most likely. If you know of anyone you think might like to take over, please forward this to them??

And/or shall we stop opening the garden and simply enjoy it ourselves?

I’d like to hear your thoughts, even if I may find some of them painful. Is anyone else going through similar dilemmas? I would appreciate it though if you didn’t suggest I change my character. That is beyond me and I would have made myself and all of you happier years ago had that been possible. I was born difficult and over sensitive and that I have to live with.

So – tell me what you think?

Anne Wareham, editor

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 4.7 / 5. Vote count: 40

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

Translate »