The Racist Gardener

You discover interesting things about people once you have lived with them long enough. In my case it turns out that the woman I married is, in gardening terms, a fairly uncompromising nationalist. I had always thought of gardening as a fairly relaxing hobby involving lawns, the occasional flowerbed, and the quiet satisfaction of a job reasonably well done. It turns out there are people who approach it more like border control.

My own tastes are simple. I like a neat lawn, properly cut and preferably striped. Something that suggests civilisation has at least briefly passed through the area and imposed a bit of order on proceedings. A lawn you can stand and admire with a cup of tea while feeling faintly competent. It does not need to win prizes. It merely needs to look as though someone cares.

Hayley, however, has other ideas. Hayley is a passionate believer in what she calls “native wildflowers”. Which sounds charming until you realise that in practice it means the garden operates a stricter immigration policy than most countries. Only plants that can prove their ancestral right to be here are truly welcome. British lineage, deep roots, and preferably something that has been quietly minding its own business in a hedgerow since about the time of Agincourt.

Anything with continental ambitions is treated with deep suspicion. I once suggested planting a few cheerful Mediterranean flowers, nothing too dramatic, just something with a bit of colour that actually seems pleased to see the sun. The look I received suggested I had proposed opening the borders and abolishing passport control at the same time. Clearly this was not a policy that would gain approval from the domestic authorities.

So the garden has slowly evolved into a sort of botanical citizenship test. A daisy from Dorset passes immediately without questions. A tulip from Turkey is clearly some kind of infiltrator that needs careful watching. Plants, it turns out, can be surprisingly controversial once you start asking where they originally came from.

I have therefore taken to referring to Hayley as The Racist Gardener. It seems only fair under the circumstances. I am not aware of any other domestic environment where a plant’s passport is examined quite so closely. If there were a small desk by the gate I suspect paperwork would be involved.

Meanwhile my lawn exists under constant pressure from these native insurgents. Hayley carefully cultivates wild patches which spend the summer quietly expanding their territory while claiming to be extremely good for the bees. They advance politely but relentlessly. The bees, I notice, rarely help with the mowing.

By September the place looks less like a garden and more like a rehearsal for the Somme. The mower advances slowly across terrain that has been allowed to become strategically inconvenient. Stems appear that are thick enough to require a moment of reflection before engaging the blade. It is less gardening at that point and more a slow mechanical campaign.

The great irony of wild gardening is that it sounds delightful in April. Bees, butterflies and nature flourishing are all mentioned in reassuring tones. By October it has become a waist high jungle full of fibrous stems that laugh openly at lawnmowers. At that stage the word “wild” begins to sound slightly less romantic.

I did manage one small act of horticultural smuggling about ten years ago. A stone pine slipped quietly into the garden before the border authorities noticed. It now stands there looking faintly Mediterranean and rather pleased with itself. Hayley tolerates it in the way one tolerates a slightly embarrassing foreign relative at a family gathering.

It is there and everyone can see it, but drawing attention to it seems unnecessary. Best just let it stand quietly in middle of the tump and hope nobody asks too many questions about its origins. Still, harmony in a relationship requires compromise. Hayley gets her native wildflower sanctuary and I get one small, fiercely defended patch of lawn where the stripes are straight and immigration control is conducted with a very large mower.