Legend has it that Inuit have more than 100 words for snow.
A friend told us yesterday that we need a similar number of words for gardening.
She had just asked Charles what he’d been doing outside and he was clearly flummoxed. It transpired that he’d been mending a shed door, but he had been doing it under the general auspices of ‘gardening’. Along with path clearing, cleaning the gate, fixing a panel in the gate, clearing a drain, strimming some grasses, painting some fencing, ordering some wood, removing an unwanted self sown ash tree, repairing some wooden edging, deadheading hydrangeas, putting a bench in place. I helped with that. (Didn’t do much else!).
Drain draining again…
Some of you will protest that these things are not gardening.
Others will recognise the endless variety of tasks which need doing out there.
Charles – not gardening?
So what do all the various types of gardener think gardening is? What do they do? Do all the above count, or none of them? Is it all gardening? There are the Professionals like Ben. He does get given bonkers work by his employers, but it must be gardening, since he’s a Proper Gardener. I understand he was out in the cold and wet recently weeding because his employer had read that it is essential to mulch and weed before the first of March. You will note that at the sensible Veddw we have no need to be weeding at this time of year, however gardeny that may be. But weeding is definitely gardening, so:
Professional gardeners are those who do jobs like weeding, grafting, pruning, fertilising.
I looked it up: they must also have excellent knowledge about plants, the different species and their needs, what could hinder or affect their growth, what they need in order to thrive, as well as which plants come to fruition depending on the changing seasons. So knowing things is gardening too.
Angus (above) ought to be a Proper Gardener since he gets paid for gardening. Here, though, he’s making a step. Is that gardening???
Then there are those famous ‘Horticulturalists’.
What do they do?
Monty in the news again.
They, according to Google, “plant seeds and bulbs to grow plants and shrubs; water, weed, prune, feed and spray plants. advise customers about plants and how to look after them. maintain plant and soil health, and control pests.” We will not for one second suggest that they sound a bit like professional gardeners.
But neither the Professionals nor the Horticulturalists apparently do the sort of work Charles and Angus do. Who does those things in their gardens?
And then there’s Vegetable Gardeners.
They are definitely too masochistic and I prefer to have no idea what they may get up to. (Though I am planning to grow a tomato plant this year. Strictly by way of experiment. Will be abandoned if it’s not easy. Unless Charles takes over. Unlikely.)
A vegetable garden. It is not ours! It has BARE soil!!!!
At the bottom of the hierarchy are Random Gardeners like us.
I can only say that after 40 years at it we have some idea of what really needs to be done. See Charles’s tasks above. Come to think of it though, most people, especially perhaps in the UK, where so many people, whether they want it or not, have a front garden on to the street and a back garden less visible to the world, must generally be random gardeners. Doing the kind of garden jobs Charles and Angus are doing.
A front garden in London.
And the majority of their results are pretty good, apart from those who concrete the ground over for parking, or who just don’t bother.
The Telegraph always (every month) includes ‘tidying’ as an instruction as to what we should be doing out there. Is tidying gardening then, too? (Nooooooooooooooooo!)
What nightmarish tasks do they think gardening involves besides tidying your cabbages?
We are told that this month that we must mow, repair bare patches of lawn, introduce oxygenating plants to our wildlife pond, plant crowns of asparagus, speed things up and prepare for next month by laying clear or black polythene over the soil now to trap warmth, sow loads and loads of veggies in greenhouse, sow loads and loads of hardy annuals in the greenhouse, start dahlias into growth, wash houseplants in the bath, water and feed them, pot on and feed long term container plants. Though someone pointed out in the comments that you’d have to paddle or swim after all our rain, to do some of these things.
So what kind of gardener are you,
when you’re not sitting with your feet up enjoying a good read?
Looks a bit grim!
“Puttering” . . . repairing deer fencing; hanging/re-filling bird feeders; cleaning up spilled soil after topping up the pots.
“Gardening” . . . anything involving touching/tending to plants; removing weeds; mulching.
“Relaxation” . . . a chimeric pursuit wherein coffee, tea, wine, or similar is sipped whilst ruminatively considering what still needs to be done in the garden.
Well, that’s a little limited in Veddw terms.
It’s also limited in terms of Mid-Atlantic gardens, too. I can’t imagine that anyone really wants to slog through all the items fitting each category. Mebbe, I shoulda’ added “et cetera” at the end of each.
Repairing deer fencing might not be puttering but could be a major job, even if not gardening. These definitions could run and run……
I refer to my outdoor work as “yardening”. Not sure if cleaning the deck or washing windows would fall under that category, though.
I can see that ‘yardening’ might work in America, but you’d get very odd looks for that here!
I call it putzing, similar to puttering or pottering, when I’m not doing a project or task. Put the hand tools in the back pocket, grab the five gallon bucket and mosey around the property doing things randomly. If I have a cup of coffee or tea in hand and no tools but still end up pulling a few weeds it doesn’t count as gardening
I Like gardenkeeping.
And I confess to succumbing to the tidiness urge. The poor little spring flowers don’t look as pretty with all that winter detritus surrounding them. We get a warm spell and I get the itch to be out there.
What no vegetables, Anne?! That’s how I justify time in the garden, I’m feeding the family. And nice landscaping increases property value. I come from a long line of people that took a dim view of doing anything just for fun, especially if you had to spend money. Had to serve a purpose.
Yep, no veg, and the value of the place doesn’t matter a fig, because we’re staying here. But I do know that having to serve a purpose thing (My mother used to complain I was ‘doing nothing’ when I read a book) and it can niggle me indoors, or when Charles does so much more ‘work’ than me.
But – I made the garden because I had to. I was driven to it by something that overrode all commonsense and inner rules like that. I left London and came here just to do that. And it was a crazy, demanding, expensive and possibly foolish thing. But I had to. Xxx
Hey, I forgotten all about yardening. It was perfect. People who have seen me Garden often comment how physically demanding it is. Digging lifting, cutting carrying. It’s a workout.
It is (workout) yet many people here seem to think it involves tripping round the garden with a trug in hand, snipping deadheads.
Well, there is the question of horticulturist vs horticulturist if you want to get into that. And then there is what I was just doing – sitting on my front steps, waiting with my camera for the bee to emerge from the blossom of the helleborus enough to get a good picture of it. Does that count?
O, yes, the camera does. Apart from the bee pics it’s the best way to keep a record of the garden and to avoid that label thing, by using it (with app) for plant id. And general relaxation.
I like “gardenkeepng”, similar to housekeeping it covers all the tasks. And yes, I believe I made up that term.
That is an excellent term! (and housekeeping is a rather close analogy in my book.)
How about “yarding” or “yardening” But of course, those probably only apply to the US where we have yards around our house in place of the British term gardens which encompasses lawns sidewalks and walks
Yes, in the UK a yard is an obscure term in relation to the outdoors, and sadly a nearly obsolete term in relation to measurement.
Really, I think gardening just about covers it for me. People, who get paid lots more than me, might also refer to it as “landscape management.”
Yep, that made me laugh!
Wow, this was more challenging than I anticipated. I realized I tend to call it “yardwork” instead of “gardening.” Maybe because here in the U.S. it’s a yard rather than a garden? In my mind, “gardening” feels more romantic and hobby-like, while “yardwork” feels more like work (and therefore is more descriptive of most of what happens in my yard/gardens). I think “yardwork” definitely sounds more American, probably coined in the 50s along with matching cuboid yew bushes and perfectly square, flat, sun-baked green “yards” along suburban streets. My conclusion is that I’d rather call it gardening -or even puttering around in the garden- but it pretty much always boils down to work. Would yardwork by another name feel less laborious?
True – yardwork won’t work across the Atlantic. And ‘puttering’ is a kind of engine noise here, I think – it would be ‘pottering’. I do love these strangenesses that language creates between us.
I always go out to “work in my garden”. Which encompasses everything, but then I suppose it would be just “work” and nothing to do with the garden? Work implies something not as fun as gardening. And in my obituary, it should read that “she loved to garden.” You have posed an interesting question, for sure! I think I shall sit in my garden and contemplate that as I look at my crocuses struggling to escape the overwintered garden remains I haven’t removed yet…
My grandfather used to say he loved work, he could look at it for hours. Maybe gardening can be like that sometimes? Hope the crocuses win their struggle!
Builder’s yard in the UK… not a good place to garden! And in the US, I’ve learned to qualify “garden”, saying “flower garden”; otherwise people here have great expectations about vegetables… (I’m with you on that one, Anne: attempts in times long past always led to failure… even the radishes turned out woody, and they’re supposed to easy! That said, cultivating under the old plum tree was successful: the cycle of whatever insect was eating the fruit was stopped, and we made jam that year – delicious.)
Yes – it’s the image of a builder’s yard, or the backyard of the terraced house where the outside loo resided, which springs to mind!
I don’t like “yard work”; it implies a chore, something you’re responsible for as a homeowner, or to a HOA (I also think of the term “prison yard”, strangely enough). “Gardening”, on the other hand, seems purposeful, intentional, something you do because you want to (well, mostly)!
Maybe mostly….
I’m just going outside to play in the dirt!
That’s the thing to do!