Fiona Veitch Smith

A Gardener’s Gospel – Week 8

Checking out the Neighbours

When I first announced I was going to write a weekly blog on my garden, my husband of 13 years warned me that I would never be able to keep it up. Don’t commit yourself to 52 weeks, he said, you might have to miss some. Of course, he was right. I’m now in my third week of a middle ear infection – left over from a nasty bout of flu. I’m almost constantly dizzy and struggle to spend any length of time reading, writing, or sitting in front of the computer. In the garden, it helps to be able to see straight too; at the moment I can’t tell the difference between a pansy and a petunia and I don’t have the strength to drag out the lawnmower. Woe is me. So for the last couple of weeks I have contented myself to look at my garden from the bedroom window, with the bonus of being able to check out the neighbours’ plots too.

Bob’s leylandi

To my right is Bob’s garden (names have been changed to protect the innocent). Frustratingly, I can’t see too much because of the line of leylandi on his side of the fence. It’s not causing too much trouble although it does block out a bit of light. I’m loath to complain though as my beautiful Whitebeam tree probably cuts out more light from his garden when it’s fully leafed. And I do welcome the privacy from that side as well – imagine if everyone in the neighbourhood was as nosy as me! As a quick aside on leylandi, I’ve just come across a perversely fascinating site which tells you what you can or can’t do in your garden, what you can be sued for and what you can sue others for. I could complain about Bob’s leylandi because they are over two metres high (7ft) – thing is, I don’t want to. To paraphrase the Scripture:

take the Whitebeam out of your own eye before taking the leylandi out of your neighbours’

The Whitebeam Wasters

What I couldn’t do however, is complain to the council about the family three doors down on the left who murdered their own Whitebeam tree last summer to make room for one of those ubiquitous blue trampoline nets. I wouldn’t have a problem with them if they were on bigger properties, but seeing we only have 10m x 10m to play with, why would anyone fill nearly half that with a trampoline? But that’s their business. What’s my business, although not legally, is the tree that was cut down. It was beautiful to look at and, if mine is anything to go by, the home or refuge of a myriad of birds, insects and small animals. Where did these poor creatures go?

Good gardeners = good people

Next door to them and two doors down from me are David and Sonia. They tend their garden well, recycle, compost and always wave when they’re hanging out the washing. Nice folk. If access to heaven was judged on garden etiquette alone (you mean it isn’t?), they’d get in. Then between David and Sonia and me are Frank and Barbara. Frank and Barbara moved in about two years ago and proceeded to dig up the entire garden plot that had been horribly neglected by the previous owners. But unlike me, they decided to lay new, fresh turf. Their garden is pristine – completely newly designed with a bowling green of a lawn. I’m so jealous. And what makes it worse is that they’re nice people – I can’t even feel justified in judging them. Damn it.

Image courtesy of FreeFoto.com

Tall Poppy Syndrome

I think it’s called tall poppy syndrome: the tendency to want to chop down anything or anyone who stands out for good or bad reasons. As just an average gardener I am able to look down on those less committed than I but cursed when unfavourably comparing myself to my greener-thumbed neighbours. It’s the same in my spiritual life. I may not be as ‘successful’ a Christian as some of my church cohorts (and none of them are Mother Teresa!) but at least I’m better than some of my backslidden pals and godless, pre-meditated tree-killing, non-composting neighbours! Oh God, save me from this judgmental spirit!

Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Matthew 7:1-2