Day 3 - Respect

So how do people get into gardening anyway? Unlikely you jumped at it when the careers adviser drew it out of the hat. It's usually the last-resort offer to the educationally undistinguished. It comes with a stigma as a lifestyle choice. True, I have known some who drifted into it after failing at school, and they have found it to be a revelation. Some are now Head Gardeners in their own right, even experts in their chosen specialism, garnering the respect of fellow anoraks across the globe. Botanical Latin is no obstacle once you've been grabbed.

By the same route, others graduate into the people that most of us see, the ones who, by association, compromise the reputations of the true professionals. You know, those for whom all shrubs are destined to become lollipops, the 'why-use-secateurs-when-a-chainsaw-will-do' types, who, when it comes to chemicals, will splash it all over like Henry Cooper's Brut. Those ones the non-gardeners hire when their garden looks like a cross between the Somme and a rainforest, only only to see it rapidly become a desert under their ministrations. These are the people who essentially hate work, and come to gardening because, like far too many people, they believe anybody can do it. And the customers who keep them in business think that too, because, let's face it, everybody's a gardener, don't you think? If you have a patch out the back, a spade in the shed, you know what it's all about, don't you?

And of course, now that the garden centre is one of the few places you can get into for a pensioners' lunch on your mobility scooter, an older generation is getting seduced by the latest colourful offers, but then, unable to do the work, is hiring these charlatans, who kill the reputations of the skilled professionals by the ubiquity of the offences they perpetuate.

Me, I came to it out of a desire to communicate. Ex-linguist, wannabe multilingual writer, failed. So I'm going to have a different take, aren't I? Pompous, up myself, arty-farty git, you may think. Could be right, but I had no other choice. It's how I'm made.

But call yourself a gardener, and few people see that. Most will see a menial, someone getting paid for a job they could perfectly well do themselves, if they only had time. Because everyone's a gardener, right? In fact, those people will come to visit the gardens where professionals work, on sunny weekends, and really believe they could do it. They will approach us and say with a smile that reflects their originality, 'you can come and do mine after', or 'you must have a lovely job, I could see myself doing that'. And I think, 'in your dreams', because the vocation of a true gardener is not a fine-weather occasional pleasure when the time feels right. It's a seven-day a week commitment every day of the year, even Christmas, snow, frost, deluge or gale. You are constantly planning ahead, one, two, three seasons in advance. It shortens your life, takes your future before it happens. You are responsible for life and death, you have an obligation to provide the best at all times for those whose leisure involves enjoying your work. You are bound by history, yet also focussed on development and history yet to come. You are mindful of security, safety, profitability. You need to understand the use and maintenance of machinery. Oh yes, and you need to know about gardening, which is a lifelong study discipline in itself. And all that's before we even begin to think about art.

So, please, don't make the mistake of thinking you can do it. Most of you can't, because what the hobbyist does in the privacy of the home bears no relation to what a professional does for a living. Believe me, I know - I've tried explaining my methods to a lot of professionals who don't get it either. And that's a story for later, dealing with training and rules and flexibility.