I was a young teenager when I first started wondering about the far-reaching effects of synthetic garden chemicals. Overwhelmed by the weeds that flourished in our family garden’s damp pebble paths, my mother (a woman already far ahead of her time when it came to strictly avoiding the use of those same chemicals on the soil and crops in her kitchen garden) reluctantly organised for them to be sprayed with a ‘non-residual’ weedkiller. Days after its sickly-sweet stench had finally faded, I watched with grim awe as the buttercups, dandelions, daisies, scarlet pimpernel, willowherb, speedwell, dock and scutch gradually yellowed, withered and died away.
Back then it seemed, if I’m honest, eerily impressive. A quick and powerfully effective solution to the challenges of garden maintenance. A magic wand to rapidly disappear any perceived “untidiness”, authoritatively reasserting the sharp, human-made boundaries intended to neatly delineate lawns, steps and pathways.
The manufacturer’s leaflet offered confident reassurances that when used as advised, its product would break down quickly and harmlessly in the soil, leaving no sinister residues. There was, it said, nothing to be concerned about regarding any possible subsequent adverse consequences to garden wildlife, waterways or human health. Watching bees and butterflies as they continued to visit the dying plants, those claims didn’t seem entirely plausible. But I pushed my doubts aside.
It was a similar story when it came to the fungicides that the teenage me dutifully sprayed on the garden’s disease-prone climbing roses each summer to help prevent them succumbing to mildew and blackspot, even as I made sure to wear a mask, gloves and protective clothing while doing so. Ditto when it came to spraying what we now know are environmentally harmful insecticides to kill heavy infestations of aphids (a pointless exercise) and using quick-release artificial fertilisers to force-feed young bedding plants like battery chickens.
It’s strangely difficult, I’ve realised, to fully relinquish the deeply embedded, historic notion of our gardens as places of pristine, weed-free, pest-free, static perfection
It took until adulthood for me to become an organic gardener and to choose to stop using these chemicals, a decision made after reading the environmentalist Rachel Carson’s revelatory book Silent Spring, about the grim consequences of the widespread use of DDT in mid-20th century America.
Which is not to say that I don’t still recognise the nature of their wide appeal.
It’s strangely difficult, I’ve realised, to fully relinquish the deeply embedded, historic notion of our gardens as places of pristine, weed-free, pest-free, static perfection. That’s despite the fact that we also recognise this out-of-date “ideal” as being not only exhausting and ultimately unachievable, but also the antithesis of what makes for a healthy, biodiverse, dynamic, planet-friendly outdoor space. And yet we somehow continue to find head space to simultaneously accommodate these two deeply opposing beliefs, as if one didn’t automatically rule out the other.
The result is that while most gardeners genuinely want to do what they can to support and nurture nature, nagging voices in our heads are also often admonishing us for allowing “weeds” to grow, or “neglecting” to kill the moss that flourishes in our lawns. Tuning them out can be hard.
The powerful companies that manufacture and market these products bear a lot of responsibility for this, cleverly exploiting our sense of tidy-mindedness and the duty of care we feel towards our plants.
By shaming gardeners into believing that we’re failing miserably as self-appointed guardians of the outdoor spaces we’ve created, they succeed in selling us their products, some of which should come with graphic warnings akin to those on cigarette packets.
I’m not immune. On one hand I’ve always admired nature’s ability to forever adapt and survive. On the other, I still need, after all these years, to fitfully remind myself that while I’m never going to be master of my own garden, this isn’t a failing. Instead, it’s powerful proof of a life-force over which humans have no real dominion, making it something both remarkable and wonderful.
This complicated, sometimes contradictory relationship that we have with the natural world is often at its most obvious at this time of the year.
Driving past once-leafy roadside verges turned the colour of Agent Orange as a result of being recently sprayed with weedkiller, it’s hard not to rail against the ugly, Sisyphean pointlessness of it all. Why spray something repeatedly, only for it to repeatedly grow back again?
Likewise, the sight of rigidly maintained gardens where wildlife literally has no place makes me feel mournful. The same goes for pristine, moss-free, wildflower-free, tightly shaved, monocrop lawns that can feel like the horticultural equivalent of a 1980s bouffant hairdo held rigidly in place with hairspray, an anachronism so historically out of date that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Duran Duran playing in the background or to find a copy of Jilly Cooper’s Riders lying on a sun lounger nearby.
Instead, the liberating truth that I’d like to share – one that even the most controlling of gardeners eventually learn to suck up – is that we aren’t and never will be in charge. We’re just mere accomplices to nature (the real boss). It’s probably the most powerful and empowering of lessons that our gardens and allotments can teach us over the course of our lifetimes, just so long as we’re willing to listen.
This week in the garden
Many kinds of heat-loving vegetable crops can now be planted under protective cover of a polytunnel or glasshouse, including tomatoes, French beans, squash, pumpkins, sweetcorn, cucumbers and melons. But bear in mind that even these can still be damaged by a late harsh frost (typically most likely to occur on or around a full moon), so keep a beady eye on the weather forecast and offer timely protection in the shape of layers of fleece or crop cover when and temperatures are forecast to go below 5°C.
Many (but not all) kinds of young flowering annuals raised from seed sowed earlier in spring will benefit from having their soft growing tips ‘pinched’ out just above a leaf node at this time of year as a way of encouraging them to grow into bushy, floriferous plants. Examples of suitable species that benefit from pinching out in this way include cosmos, tagetes, snapdragons, petunia and fuchsia as well as dahlias. Pinching out is typically done when the young plant is approximately 15cm-20cm tall, using the thumb and index finger to neatly nip out the growing tip.
Dates for your diary
- Tomorrow, Sunday, May 11th, 10am-4pm: Rare & Special Plant Fair, Mount Congreve Gardens, Co Waterford (admission free), with up to 40 specialist nurseries taking part. mountcongreve.com
- Friday, May 16th, from 6.45pm: Nun’s Cross Church of Ireland, Ashford, Co Wicklow, An Evening with Robert O’Byrne and Seamus O’Brien, a fundraising ticketed event in aid of this historic building’s preservation. Booking essential. eventbrite.ie
- Sunday, May 18th: Grow Wild; The RHSI Russborough Garden Show, Russborough House & Gardens, Blessington, Co Wicklow, with garden tours, practical demonstrations, plant stalls, and talks by guest speakers including June Blake, Kitty Scully, Paul Smyth, Rosie Maye and Danny Alvey. rhsi.ie
