New owners and gardens, was Composts
totototo@telus.net (Sun, 23 May 2010 12:08:01 PDT)
On 23 May 2010, at 1:24, Theladygardens@aol.com wrote:
Can you imagine the daily delight of a gardener lucky enough to buy Jane
McGary's country place?
What I can imagine is wifey turning to hubby and saying, "dear, why don't you
bring in the backhoe and level all that mess so we can have a nice paddock for
the horses?" [PS: I am not implying that Jane's place is a mess of any sort.]
Keep in mind that Victoria is a city that is still mad for gardening, yet when
houses with good gardens sell, that's invariably the end of the garden as it
was.
My estimate is that less than 1 in a 100 households here care much about
gardening, and all the rest view anything more than a lawn, a few shrubs and
trees, and a potted red geranium on the front steps as an impediment to
enjoying life. More than once a house with a well-known garden has been sold,
the buyer chirping about how the garden is *exactly* what they want, only to
have the bulldozer or backhoe brought in shortly after the place changes hands
or the decades-old rhododendrons cut down "to let in the light". The latter is
a particular vice of former Albertans who are used to the wide open spaces of
the prairie provinces.
It is, I am afraid, wishful thinking that new owners will keep a good garden
going. Even if they are, by a freak of fate, enthusiastic gardeners, their
interests won't be the same as the previous owner. Hence we find rock gardens
turned into orchards of raspberries, currants, gooseberries, and other small
fruit. Perennial beds cleared and devoted to tomatoes. And so on.
My own plans as inevitable downsizing approaches include having weekly plant
sales for a year or two and selling off every garden plant on the place that
has any merit whatsoever, plus gifting some uncommon shrubs to the municipality
for replanting in parks. A melancholy perspective, but better that than hearing
later via the grapevine that all the plants were destroyed to make room for a
new development.
--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate
on beautiful Vancouver Island