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Instant Gardening

Every day there seems to be a quicker and easier way of doing things, whether it’s the latest ready meal, the quickest internet delivery or even instant wallpaper. And in the gardening world the TV makeover programmes have done their fair bit to encourage us all to build a garden in a weekend.

The quick and easy approach gets people out there gardening and enjoying their own piece of Eden but I just wish they let you in on a little secret which is that plants really do need time and a bit of tender loving care to grow and blossom.

Trees in particular come in all shapes, sizes and colours but there is nothing more satisfying than planting a seed and seeing it grow into a mature plant. You don’t have to even go that far to get the real enjoyment of gardening. Buy a small tree from your local garden centre, find the right spot in your garden and you can almost feel the ground throbbing as it gets growing. Buy a vast specimen, crane it into your garden with the help of some burly gardeners and it’ll give you impact sure but you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about.

You can plant great enormous specimen trees, and they can make instant statements, provide instant screening and impact, but you can’t beat getting your own hands dirty and watching a small plant mature into a larger one.

Now is the perfect time of year to start planting shrubs and trees. But if you reading this on a balmy spring day you can still do some things to create instant impact without resorting to the wholesale redevelopment of your patch.

You can do great things with pots. Plants up some colourful ceramic planters with annuals, better still grow some vegetables. Mix tomato plants with aubergines and sow some basil around to inspire your cooking. You could even stretch to an olive tree – they make great plants for pots as you can move them into the sunniest spot in the winter.

Plant up herbs through the borders, chives, fennel, sage, parsley and coriander are all quick growing and create some great foliage – purple fennel is amazing lit up at night. And there’s still time to sow half-hardy annuals directly into the borders for some impact in just a few weeks, Nasturtium Peach Melba is a favourite of mine. Failing all that paint your shed or mow some stripes into your lawn to stun the neighbours.

So next time you’re watching Alan or Charlie on the telly creating a stunning scene in a weekend just remember they wouldn’t do that in their own gardens. Like all of us they like the satisfaction of doing the gardening for themselves, taking some time out to feel the soil and grow something whether its some lettuce in a few weeks or a tree over a lifetime.
by Jean Paterson