I don't suppose he could have told you the capital of Australia or in which part of the body you would find the tibia. But mention potato blackleg or the relative merits of Phlox subulata vs. Phlox decussata, and he could talk knowledgeably for hours. Peach leaf curl and thiphanate methyl held no fears for him. His suburban London backyard was not much larger than a standard tennis court, but it had the sumptuousness and dazzling variety of a miniature Kew Gardens.
The remarkable thing was that there was nothing particularly remarkable about this. Most of his neighbors had gardens nearly as luxuriant as his, and most could have talked with intimate assurance about everything from thrip infestations to maximizing blooming times on pelargoniums. This is a country where virtually everyone knows a good deal about gardening, and most are only too eager to offer an opinion-which can be somewhat disconcerting for a less scientific gardener like me.
You must understand that I come from a family where you are deemed to have a green thumb if you can grow a cactus on a windowsill. My own humble approach to gardening (which actually works pretty well) is to treat as a weed anything that hasn't flowered after a month or so and to sprinkle the rest with bone meal or whatever else you find lying around in the greenhouse.
The only shortcoming to this method is that it leaves you vulnerable to questions when neighbors stop to peer over your privet hedge and brightly ask what you're up to. ("Well, actually I'm sprinkling these weedy-looking things with some of this white stuff I found in the garage. I'm not sure if it's nitrogen or cement mix.")
And if there is one thing you can be certain of, it is that passersby will offer advice. Once, some years ago, when I was pruning a bed of leggy roses in front of our house, I had seven separate passersby stop and offer suggestions. Two of them stayed most of the afternoon, pointing out wayward suckers and stems that needed harder cutting back. Their advice was theoretically beneficial, but they also asked pointless questions, which was excruciating since I had to admit, little by little, that I wasn't altogether clear (actually, I didn't have the faintest idea) about the distinction between hybrid tea and floribundas. In British gardening terms, that is roughly equivalent to admitting that you are not sure which side of the road to drive on or how to tie your shoelaces. Altogether it was a mortifying experience.
For a long time after that, I tried being more scientific in my approach. I studied manuals and even tuned in to Gardeners' Question Time. But it was hopeless. The facts simply wouldn't settle. I might as well have attempted to teach myself advanced calculus. How could I possibly be expected to remember the difference between Dianthus barbatus and Dianthus chinensis? Most of the time I can't even recall where I put the keys to the tool shed.
And then I hit upon a solution that was quite brilliant, if I say so myself. I discovered that if I memorized a few impressive terms from a gardening encyclopedia, tossed in an assortment of Latin-sounding words of my own devising, and sprinkled them liberally and confidently throughout conversation, I could beat the English at their own game.
Now if someone tells me that I need some dichlofluanid for my raspberry cane spot, I reply thoughtfully, "Well, you know I tried that last year, but I found that monocarbonyl-phylatium gives better sequestrene levels and speeds up vernalization, though I grant you I'm not happy about the laciniate rotation of the oblate leaves. Do you think I should heel in the nodes or go for something more leguminous?" Generally I find that this gets rid of them pretty briskly.
Anyway, I have finally come to realize that the real answer to successful gardening isn't necessarily knowing the scientific names or even keeping on top of your soil pH. It's having a good pile of mysterious powdery substances lying around.
Now, if you will excuse me, I found a tub of yellowish stuff under the workbench yesterday and I can't wait to try it out. I'm not sure if it's calomel dust of poster paint, but I've got a feeling it will be just the thing for my woolly aphids.
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