Notes From Madoo: The English Flower

By Robert Dash

I am always accoutred for any exigency. Therefore, full or half boots, decent brolly, of course, and suitable weatherproof as well as rain hat. If the day promises clear, flats, and a change of them if there is to be a tea. Something suitably modish in the way of headgear and I find that a long, flowing scarf is a cynosure, although in the rest of my habiliment I do not want to detract from the general floral display.

Straw bag is over my shoulder containing pad and pen and pencil, and camera, if permitted, and a goodly bunch of my cards. A decent bug spray. Dark glasses, but of the serious sort, and gloves, one off, one carried. I take my second car, the one neither old nor new, but distinguished by a lift-up hatch in case things are for sale. The hatch is kept open. I leave in the back a trug full of my working tools and a small bale of salt hay, and I am the first in line to arrive on Open Day.

The owner is generally in a tizzy of preparation but I pay no heed and generally speed toward the spot I see a gardener or two hastily retreating from. There may be error there and a clue to the entire garden's maintenance or concurrent woes - the quickly covered hole, say, where something died or was just installed. One must be forensic and on top of it all. The water just sinking is a clue. The general disturbed look. That sort of thing. Follow the thin, not-yet-swept trail of loam on the path. Look to the compost pile, and voila, a hemlock, a weeping hemlock beset by woolly adelgids breathing its last!

In my own way I am the very best visitor a garden could have and I take my ease on any available bench, writing away and smiling my best. When I hear someone murmur, "Lovely," I look up brightly and murmur, "Oh, thank you." And then there is a small or lengthy chat and I am asked whether this is my garden and I modestly demur but add, "But I did have a bit of a hand in it. Quite unofficially, you know. Perhaps you know my work?" And I show photographs of some of my designs and give my card. "I never take credit for my work. The garden is the owner's, you see, and I am merely a ministrant." In this way I have enlarged my client list as well as the circle of my friendships, both very dear to me.

My card is garden green, printed at great expense. I leave it in an unobtrusive perch - the base of a pedestal, perhaps. The arm of a chair. It looks like a leaf, for it is a generalized sort of green all growing matter participates in. It will be days before one is found. My intention is information, merely, and certainly not littering.

And then I leave my name in the book, and if there is no column marked "Comments," I make one and write at length a careful precis of all I have seen that is notable: "Rhododendrons, in general, although vigorous, show a need for mulch. May I suggest the following recipe which, after years of growing them with distinction in my own and many other gardens both here and in my native Albion. . . ." I conclude with my rating. "Although tempted to give you a higher, I find that your garden is a six." And then I sign my name, "Alexandra Battesford, Green Destinations." And my card.

For a multitude of reasons, none of which pertain here, I do not repeat my visits. If the ownership changes, that is, of course, an entirely different matter.