With the Chelsea Flower Show currently gripping the capitals attention, we turn instead to Herefordshire, where Liberty is locked in battle with Ground Elder. A plant I had previously assumed was a once a great delight and instead it is a horticultural nightmare. Still, while the weed may be relentless, Liberty’s mindset is admirably sage and as ever a delight to read.

@libertynimmo

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Somewhat predictably, this past month has been a busy time for sowing vegetables and cut flowers.  ‘Tis the moment, but Spring has continued to lurch us about; it has not been particularly kind this time round.  The nights have been cold and I remembered to take out insurance on my sowings in case of any potential losses.  I admit that I went too soon on the Tithonia and the premium was called in but luckily, it’s not a competition.

I have been wrestling with Ground Elder – that so-called dreaded garden problem.  However, rather than excavating the garden in full, I have changed the question from ‘how can I be rid of this wretched imposter?’ to ‘how can I live alongside this vigorous life-loving plant?’   

Well, I do like Ground Elder, I think it tastes nice when it’s young and it has a pretty flower.  I also don’t want to launch some never-ending attack on a plant which will have more determination to persevere than my terrier does with a hole. I don’t have the energy.  Admittedly, total ground elder takeover is nevertheless a bit annoying. And so, I have been cutting it back to make compost teas from the leaves and this will become food for my tomatoes.  I have under-planted with salads and spinach in the vain hope they might romp away and suppress the vigorous growth. I have also left patches in shady corners, dare I say it, to flourish and flower.  Watch this space.

Ever the aspirational philosopher, my evolving Ground Elder management system has made me think about weeds, how we treat them and our lack of tolerance.  Why are they deemed to be unwanted and who is calling the shots on this decision?  I don’t particularly like the trite idiom of ‘a weed is just a plant in the wrong place’.  I want all the plants in my garden to be in the place they want to be. They are all wanted.  Perhaps, our dislike of imposters isn’t about the weed at all. Perhaps it is what a weed-free garden represents to the psyche; that one’s life is in order? That everything is therefore in its ‘right’ place?  The neatly mown lawn suggests a mental orderliness, a regime, a place to be proud of.  In contrast, perhaps the humble weed is shorthand for mess, commonness and chaos.   I’m not sure why we continue to try and bring order to the natural world, why we want to tidy it up, and seemingly remain unaware that it has its own management system that is far superior to the lawn mower and the hoe.

I suppose our predilections about class and taste don’t help things either.  One moment the nettle may be naff or ugly.  It may only be permitted to grow on the perimeter, beside the compost, barely within sight. The next, our fickle minds celebrate it for medicinal qualities, as a fibre for clothing, as food for us as well as moths, butterflies and insects which in turn then keep our beloved vegetables safe from hungry predators.  We don’t tend to be very good at acceptance.

Woe betide, I am as changeable and full of contradiction as the next person.  It is of course much easier to romanticise disorder in the natural world than inside, where the structure of things does matter and the expense concentrates the mind.  It has been inside that my own need to control rears its head and takes its tightest grip.  This past month I have been finalising plans for renovating the garden studio (renovation does sound grand) and fitting solar panels.  The behind-the-scenes planning has entailed extensive use of an architect’s ruler, graph paper, a very expensive and short meeting with Building Control, lots of measuring of the building and further re-measuring when I finally understood that adding insulation and corrugated steel sheeting would increase the height, width and depth.  I can now adeptly convert inches to cm and mm and I know my fascias from my eaves, my ridges from my barges.  I am fully au-fait with the ins and outs of solar panels, batteries, inverters and storage systems (though don’t ask me too many questions). There are scrap pieces of paper everywhere with drawings and crossings out, screwed up balls of paper and indecipherable workings out; the kitchen feels like an eccentric scientist’s office on the verge of a big breakthrough.  As chance would have it, I am not immune from the psychological comfort that comes from imposing order when one really does have no idea at all what they are doing.  Perhaps that’s how the lawn mowing, hoeing fanatics feel?

My late-night evenings are filled with YouTube DIY videos – incidentally – they have been helpful and tend to boost morale.  I have also been very fortunate to have a friend in the know about building who continues to help save me from my hasty and controlling self. I dread to think the muddle I’d be in.  And so, with an ever-burgeoning toolbox, aspirations of grand designs and a naivety that has allowed me to try, I can’t help but wonder what catastrophic oversight I might have made.  Time will tell.