Fair Weather Gardener

It has long been said that I am the kiss of death to plants, so when I told my husband I was going to try and get into gardening a bit more, he just looked at me like I was mad and started bringing home brochures for artificial grass.

Undeterred by his lack of confidence in me, I waited for the ideal sunny weekend and then toddled off to the local garden centre in Aylesbury to see what I could find.  

It was like stepping into a different world.  One where you need a degree in Latin to navigate the plant names, and a working knowledge of bio-chemistry to decipher what feed to get for the type of soil you have.  

In the end, I took a wild guess at the soil, picked the plants that looked pretty, and didn’t buy any plant food at all.  You can see where I might have been going wrong all these years. 

Nevertheless, the lady at the till was very impressed with my selection.

“It makes my day when someone buys lupins.”  She told me, pointing at the tall yellow things in my trolly.  “Oh, and look at those beautiful delphiniums.”  They were the blue things.  

Around £100 lighter, I managed to get all the plant life home in one piece, which was a great start.  Unfortunately by the time I got home the sun had gone in and was replaced with rain, so I lined my haul up against the side of the house in their pots, ready for me to plant when the weather improved a bit.  I mean, who does gardening in bad weather!? 

It rained pretty much for the next week, then it was windy, then I was at work, and then I just couldn’t be bothered.  And meanwhile, the plants continued to wait patiently, looking baleful in their pots. 

“Shouldn’t you get them in the ground?” my husband would ask now and again.  

“They’ll be fine I told him.  They’d be in pots at the garden centre wouldn’t they.”  

Anyway to cut a long story short, one that is painful for both my bank account and the plants, only two out of the ten lived to tell the tale, and lupins are definitely not my friends. 

Since then I have repeated the same process approximately three times, the garden centre has a restraining order on me, and we are actively discussing astroturf.

Sherry x

For more funny (and possibly useless) gardening tips, have a look here

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