Much remains
to be done on the pruning front, I’m afraid, because I was, in fact,
up there for work. We country folk and gardeners continue to stand around
in knowing huddles, shaking our heads and predicting that the cold will
come, will catch us out, will nip all those buds where
we’re least expecting it. But I don’t think we believe ourselves
any more.
The insects certainly think their moment has come. The wasps are already
starting to build nests. The little bastards are crawling out from all
over the place. I found one in a folded sheet and another seemed to have
spent the so-called winter inside one of the overhead lights in the kitchen.
They’re down the spines of books and behind furniture – all
limping out, ready to plague us. I wonder what such a ludicrously warm
winter does to insect life? Will this summer be unbearably pest-filled?
Or do they need the cold during which to gather their forces for a frontal
attack in summer? Hey, maybe a cold snap will come along and… but
there I go again; no, I don’t believe it.
What seems abundantly clear is that even when pockets of cold –
like our pretty, snowy weekend – do come along, they simply don’t
seem to have the strength to last, which is good for the plants. There
are few, I reckon, that won’t stand up to an overnight blizzard
followed up by a week of gorgeously sunny weather. The slightly worrying
thing is, that since the snow-melt evaporated, there has been no rain.
Even the morning dew isn’t particularly heavy. And, as I said, leaf
buds are appearing. I can’t… it wouldn’t seem right…
I mean, can I actually bring myself to begin watering – in February?
If we’re heading for a draught, then it’s even more vital
that I get my watering system in. I wonder whether it will happen.
Watering systems are causing me nothing but grief at the moment. In one
of the gardens I’m doing, across the Tuscan border, I’m stuck
in some ridiculous power-play. My vivaisti were ready to move
in and and complete the watering system (or so they said: I don’t
want to make them sound too virtuous, because they absolutely
aren’t) and plant everything and lay the turf… a strange activity
for this time of year but perfectly possible given the meteorological
conditions. But no, my contractor can’t do it because the plumber
who did inside the house is an old friend of the owner so he has to do
it but he won’t do it – who knows why? maybe some outstanding
payment? – because he’s too busy elsewhere. So, week after
week, my charm offensive goes on. And on. And on. ‘Such lovely weather,
you’ll be up there to do that sistema d’irrigazione this
week, I expect?’ But there’s always a reason for putting it
off. Rain, snow, fog, work, backache… And to think that I could
have sent my people in there weeks ago.
That said, it took from before Christmas to get them to build a very insignificant
little bit of watering system in a hotel courtyard (pictured below
– now almost finished). And who knows how long it will be before
my virtually plant-less hilltop garden just south of our house on the
Umbrian side of the border will get its dribble pipes? When my business
is huge, when my role in my business is to make few, elegant scribbles
on scraps of paper, to be translated into spectacular gardens by my armies
of gardening minions, I must remember to employ someone merely to wield
a whip over my watering-system-builders.
As the climate gets odder, it will be ever more vital. We’ve rented
the house out for a couple of weeks in July and already I’m panicking
about whether the grass will survive the ordeal, without me there wielding
a hose.
