In an English Country Garden
With all the good grace of a seven year old with the right sulk on, I sat and piouted in the passenger seat of the car on Saturday as Lou drove me to the RHS gardens at Wisley.
As it's just down the A3, this was a trip for us, but judging by the number of cars and coaches in the huge car part, Wisley is a 'day out' for many, and as I humourlessly quipped as we arrived, you could almost smell the piss and mints - in other words…old people ahoy.
In fact, the place was fantastic and the visitors were nothing like I imagined. Gardening may no longer be the new rock and roll, or even the new chamber music, but it does have a fascination for an awful lot of people. It might even be described as a passion, a religion. And if gardening is a religion, then RHS Wisley is holy ground.
More than just a big garden centre, it's where the RHS have their test gardens. So as you walk round you see fields of what appear to be the same sort of flower, all being test grown to see which is the best. I couldn't tell them apart obviously, as the limit of my horticultural knowledge is that when you fall in a patch of stinging nettles it hurts. However, expert gardeners could and did, and the real experts - the bees - certainly could.
The place was awash - literally, there had just been a downpour before we arrived and as the sun came out the smell of the wet earth drifted up and everything in the garden was indeed lovely. Middle class people strolled around looking at things, very well behaved children wandered round with trail maps and activity packs.
The lawns were fantastic. Flowers might not turn my head but I'm a sucker for a good lawn and the last time I saw stripes that straight was on a suit.
Despite my earlier sulky pout I enjoyed myself tremendously. The gardens are beautiful but of special interest was the 'allotment' section. Much thought in the Macster household has been given over to allotments. Lou no doubt dreaming of a crop of sunflowers and I of a place to distil things and hide porn. The RHS allotment was amazing and we left it with much to ponder and a sneaking regard for polytunnels. Two weeks further into the growing season and I suspect I would have left with pockets bulging with fruit too.
The place was enormous and, though there were lots of people there, it wasn't crowded. It was very much the middle class equivalent of B&Q. The shop sold watering cans but, unlike my £2.99 Wickes special, these were made of shiny metal and would no doubt last forever…as they should, at twenty quid a pop. What do people fill them with…Perrier?
Wandered to the café and, as the rain came down, were terribly British and sat huddled beneath a brolly drinking tea and eating scones, watching pensioners dash for cover from tree to tree, like overgrown aged squirrels.
Came away with what appeared to be a daisy plant, but is probably not, and all sorts of enthusiastic ideas about an allotment. Have decided to start saving up for my shiny watering can as this, and a pipe, is, I consider, far more important to successful gardening than slug pellets, horse sh*t or actually knowing what you are doing would ever be.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/WhatsOn/gardens/wisley/index.asp
As it's just down the A3, this was a trip for us, but judging by the number of cars and coaches in the huge car part, Wisley is a 'day out' for many, and as I humourlessly quipped as we arrived, you could almost smell the piss and mints - in other words…old people ahoy.
In fact, the place was fantastic and the visitors were nothing like I imagined. Gardening may no longer be the new rock and roll, or even the new chamber music, but it does have a fascination for an awful lot of people. It might even be described as a passion, a religion. And if gardening is a religion, then RHS Wisley is holy ground.
More than just a big garden centre, it's where the RHS have their test gardens. So as you walk round you see fields of what appear to be the same sort of flower, all being test grown to see which is the best. I couldn't tell them apart obviously, as the limit of my horticultural knowledge is that when you fall in a patch of stinging nettles it hurts. However, expert gardeners could and did, and the real experts - the bees - certainly could.
The place was awash - literally, there had just been a downpour before we arrived and as the sun came out the smell of the wet earth drifted up and everything in the garden was indeed lovely. Middle class people strolled around looking at things, very well behaved children wandered round with trail maps and activity packs.
The lawns were fantastic. Flowers might not turn my head but I'm a sucker for a good lawn and the last time I saw stripes that straight was on a suit.
Despite my earlier sulky pout I enjoyed myself tremendously. The gardens are beautiful but of special interest was the 'allotment' section. Much thought in the Macster household has been given over to allotments. Lou no doubt dreaming of a crop of sunflowers and I of a place to distil things and hide porn. The RHS allotment was amazing and we left it with much to ponder and a sneaking regard for polytunnels. Two weeks further into the growing season and I suspect I would have left with pockets bulging with fruit too.
The place was enormous and, though there were lots of people there, it wasn't crowded. It was very much the middle class equivalent of B&Q. The shop sold watering cans but, unlike my £2.99 Wickes special, these were made of shiny metal and would no doubt last forever…as they should, at twenty quid a pop. What do people fill them with…Perrier?
Wandered to the café and, as the rain came down, were terribly British and sat huddled beneath a brolly drinking tea and eating scones, watching pensioners dash for cover from tree to tree, like overgrown aged squirrels.
Came away with what appeared to be a daisy plant, but is probably not, and all sorts of enthusiastic ideas about an allotment. Have decided to start saving up for my shiny watering can as this, and a pipe, is, I consider, far more important to successful gardening than slug pellets, horse sh*t or actually knowing what you are doing would ever be.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/WhatsOn/gardens/wisley/index.asp
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