There are many reasons for taking up wildlife gardening.
There are to my mind far more reasons to take up wildlife gardening than there are to take up ‘proper’ gardening.
Proper gardening is fine as an excuse to get from under your love ones feet of a Sunday afternoon, especially when he/she/they* are agitating for something to be done about that shelf in the kitchen that has been wonky since you first put it up 8 years ago and she/they/he have been going on about it ever since. This time they/he/she means business and your only hope of getting out of it is to get proactive about one of the myriad other jobs about the place that you never get round to. And that is where gardening comes in.
Beyond that, it is all a lot of hard work in the place that you reserve for lounging about with a beer or two contemplating the true nature of the universe ... or to be more precise, your navel.
And anyway, it cost money. Have you seen the price of seeds these days? And the compost, the tools and all that designer gardening attire? Start down that road and you will end up working all the hours the god sends, just to earn enough to look cool in the conservatory, or chic in the shed.
What is more, it is a complete tie, in the same way that a dog or children are a complete tie.
Once you’ve invested in bedding plants, you just can’t go off and leave them for 4 weeks as you gallivant around the south of France, without expecting some kind of consequence awaiting you on your return.
In the case of children and dogs, the consequence is likely to involve prison. At least with gardening the stakes are not quite as high.
With the garden, the consequence of several weeks of idle contemplation on the relative merits of various brands of vin rogue, is that it will look a bit like one of these 1940’s films involving an intrepid band of adventurers who, while casually hacking their way through the jungle, come across the remains of an ancient civilisation, the ruins of which are teaming with giant snakes, spiders and a population of frisky dinosaurs that have inexplicably avoided the evolutionary fate of their mates and are determined to spend the second reel eating their way through all the minor characters of the cast until the hero saves the day, the dumb blond and a vaguely amusing character with nothing much to do with the plot, who all escape in the nick of time to say nothing of by the skin of there teeth, leaving behind the precious thing that they found in one of the ruined temples and the stage clear for the remake.
The truth is, I like the garden. I like it to be overgrown. You see I like nature, to remind me who is boss. I like wildlife in the garden doing wild things without me getting in it’s way. So, I explain, to my life enhancing partner, “I like wildlife gardening.”
Sometimes the truth can be hurtful. Especially when delivered with a simple, concise and cutting remark.
“Gardening is a verb. It requires you to actually do something.”
Then the clincher, “if you are not going to do anything with it ... I will get a man in!”
That did it. The thought of someone else messing around in my garden, ripping up the dandelions, tidying all the spiders out of a home and persecuting the existence out of wasps, was too much.
A Christmas Carol
audio recording project
Help us achieve our mad dash to get A Christmas Carol recorded and edited in time for Christmas Eve!!!
It’s gonna be tight!!!
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Everyone has a Greta Thunberg inside them somewhere. That part of them that when push comes to shove, will find the strength to do something to save the planet ... well at small part of the planet anyway. It’s just a matter of finding the shovel that makes them want to push ... as it were.
Well my Greta had just been shoved! And you don’t want to go shoving around my Greta, I can tell you!!!
I want weeds! I want slugs!! I want woodlice and earwigs and moss and spring tails and ants!!!
I want all the things that ‘proper’ gardeners spend half their life trying to destroy!!!
I want nature in my garden!!!!!!
It was time to grow up. To become a man/woman (or whatever the gender none specific version of that is), pick up my secateurs and face the music.
Or rather brambles, bindweed, ivy and the forest of horse tails that a decade of careful neglect, had established in our garden.
But it would have to be done gently.
There was after all a habitat out there depending on me. If I didn’t get off my proverbial, then untold numbers of living things were going to be lost under
some ham-fisted man with a van’s obsession with tidying things up and planting those funny white flowers that spread like wildfire, smell like old ladies and remind me of my mother.
AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!
It had suddenly become my mission! My calling!! My duty!!!
My corner of the planet is going to be saved !!!!
And so began my wildlife gardening adventure.
And, it being the C21st, so began my wildlife gardening blog.
* It is a bit of a truism that today, the whole idea of gender is fast becoming an out of date concept. With a few examples ... a very few examples, by which I mean child birth and a few medical conditions, there is little that is still gender specific.
Add to that the many modern different interpretations of what a gender is, outside the ‘binary’ gender tradition (male and female, him her etc) and you get a problem.
Gender none specific personal pronouns. He/she. Ee? Ze? They?
It gets a little more complicated when we get down to the possessive personal pronoun. His/hers. Ees? Zes? Their?
I am not trying to come up with a solution. I merely wish to express my confusion.
Dickens Season
In 2020 Hothouse Theatre is marking the 150th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ death with a Dickens Season.
It will include some of his finest works adapted for the stage, audio recording, physical radio performances and various workshop!
Of course we are going to need your help!!!
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