As I sat in my parking area all weekend, yanking mountains of weed from the gravel (again) I got to wondering, how long does it take for a garden to become ‘established’? Or more specifically, how long will it take my garden to become established? All right, I admit, the question is a trifle premature, given that most of my ‘garden’ is virgin territory. But it would be nice to think that little corners here and there were sufficiently established not to need constant attention.
I have to say, it is interesting how the weed cover in the part of the herb garden immediately beneath the kitchen – planted first – is slightly slower and slightly thinner than the part below the living room. But the end result for me of both the high thick stuff and the low thinner stuff is the same: arms criss-crossed with bloody gashes from those low-growing ground-cover Partridge roses which, gorgeous as they are, are killers when it comes to weeding.
When, I wondered, will I be able to get out my floppy hat and potter around with my thin gloves and dainty secateurs? Secretly, I don’t think the day will ever come. Or if it does, I will have won the lottery and be in a fit financial state to pay someone to do all the rest. Then again, I would – were that ever to happen – miss the thrill and satisfaction of wearing myself out making a wilderness look like a garden. The car park weeding, for example, wasn’t weeding for weeding’s sake. In fact, I was clearing a path to that raised bit along the edge of the car park where I subsequently planted three medlars (Mespilus germanica) and two persimmons (Diospyros kaki). Oh, and dozens and dozens of onions, mixed with a few tulips.
Medlars and persimmons are high on my list of favourite trees – the former for the way their branches bend themselves so sculpturally, and for the glorious rustiness of their fruit; the latter, for the way they glow.
Umbria is perfect persimmon territory. As I write that, I only wish I had a photo of the trees that grow in the neat vegetable gardens around the Medieval walls of CdP. (Why can I never bother to stop the car and take pictures?) Through the summer, they’re just another tree – globular and of a dull, comfortable green. Then – in these parts – with the first frosts, the leaves turn dark apricot and russet brown. Then they fall off to reveal… the most beautiful Christmas tree lights, great globes of a pale Chinese orange, all over the perfect framework of musty brown branches. And there they hang, looking for all the world like they’re glowing, for weeks. Usually by this time of year, they’re gone. But I guess it must be persistant cold that makes the fruit fall. This year it has been persistantly warm, and so rather than disappearing over the Christmas holidays, the fruits have just hung on. Each time I see one, it makes me gasp in very childish delight. (I only wish I could make myself like the fruit, but I don’t: when it’s unripe it’s inedible, when it’s ripe, it tastes of nothing. No, much better just to look at it.)
In planting, I had two misgivings. Both of which I caught from L.
Many years ago when he taught at the English department at Rome university, there were persimmon trees in the staff car park there too. Persimmon isn’t a perfect Roman fruit. In Rome, it seems to be the excessive end-of-summer heat that makes the fruit fall. In the English department car park, they would splat off the tree and on to the roofs of cars parked beneath. If this happened early in the day, then by late afternoon the sticky mush would have become gloopy superglue on the car, stuck there so firmly that no amount of washing would get it off in one go. For weeks after, you could spot the unfortunates who had arrived too late to grab the places on the opposite side. So, for L, persimmons in a car park are sheer madness.
Secondly, when the weeds were gone and the creeping reeds (Arundo donax, bane of my life) were hacked down, the view from there, L rightly commented, was quite quite spectacular. As I’m such a garden fascist, L didn’t dare to voice his fears that that view might be somewhat obscured by five whopping trees, but I could see what he was thinking. And yes, to some extent… erm, he’s right. On the other hand (1) coming down the drive into a wall of luscious green and then getting out of your car and peering throught the summer branches to a spectacular view will have a marvellous surprise effect (and what’s more, you’ll be able to see the view over the tops of the trees for many years to come); (2) they are deciduous and therefore the problem arises only in summer; (3) the colour combination of rusty medlars and Chinese orange persimmons is one I've been plotting for too long to give it up for any such practical consideration and (4) the idea of gazing out over that view through a haze of branches that are quite bare except for those glowing fruit… well, I really can’t think of anything more magical.
And the onions and tulips? Well, the bulbs were just kind of lying around. And (against all the evidence) I still like to think that maybe if I fill the freshly-weeded soil with something that’s going to occupy the whole area, then that something will spring up long before the weeds, leaving no room for invaders. You live and hope.