'What grows in the garden so lovely and rare...'

The Mayday bank holiday weekend is one of my favourites in France. Not because I want to celebrate the workers or their rights but because it's the Foire des Fleurs at Tournon d'agenais, followed two days later by a similar but smaller one in our own village.

We were very lucky to inherit a very mature and thoughtfully planted garden and throughout the seasons we have the good fortune to watch it unfold in all its colours and textures. The garden was less lucky to inherit us for I am to gardening what Einstein was to origami. In other words, no bloody use at all. Each year, I convince myself that I'll be different. I pour over my multitudes of gardening books and 'place that plant' ad nauseum. Each year, I shell out a not insignificant sum of money on flowers and plants which I often kill well before I've even planted them.

                                                              

My piece de résistance was, without a doubt, the very rare Chinese tree we bought at the Tournon show a few years ago.  It was thought to be extinct until 1948 when some seeds were found in some godforsaken part of China unseen by the 'long noses' for centuries.....  and with my help it will probably be extinct again in the near future.

It was duly planted, taking care that the roots were well watered and that it wasn't positioned under any overhead cables.  No worry about watering it as the irrigation system in the garden could take care of that.  Within two weeks it was yellow. 'Just the changing seasons', I gaily informed the CH.  He expressed doubt.  'It's dead'.  But how could that be? 'Well in that case it must be faulty. The irrigation system has kept it watered so why would it die?' 'Did you move the pipes so it was actually getting any water?' he asked. Ah.

Last year I thought that we'd try our hand at a bit of self-sufficiency. I planted 10 tomato plants, some aubergines, some courgettes and some chilis. (OK, OK, I know you can't really make much with that little combination).  End result, 2 aubergines, 1 chili and no tomatoes. They all got blossom end rot. Can that be passed on to humans I wonder?  

I went to the market to see if I could get any more tomato plants and found that our lovely old farmer, from whom we buy the best onions and garlic on the planet, still had some.

I bought one.

'Just one, Madame?' he enquired curiously.

Ooooh yes, you have no idea of my history with tomato plants. Better that I leave the rest for someone who has more than a passing chance of growing anything on them.

This year, I've planted tomatoes, courgettes de Nice (lovely round ones), strawberries, melons and peppers. They've been in the ground for over a week now and they are still alive.

The Foire des Fleurs was glorious, even the sun made a rare appearance.  I wandered around marvelling at all the different plants  - bougainvillea - killed three of those, trumpet vine - killed two of those, vast swathes of surfinia - I've killed vast swathes of those, olive trees - yep, got a dead one outside my front door.

Even more exciting were all the flowers that I've not yet had the chance to kill. I reached for my purse.  No, not this year.  I'll give the veggies another go but there will be no more summer displays of dead hanging baskets chez moi!

Travels with my strimmer....

I'm the first to admit that I'm a newbie to this strimming lark. Not because I've consciously made a decision not to strim, but more because all previous attempts have ended in disaster.

A few years back we bought a sooper-dooper heavy duty Honda strimmer for 200 euros from a friend who'd bought it in a job lot of stuff from a couple who had lost the will to live with their house renovation and scurried back to the relative civilisation of the US. (did you manage to read that sentence without taking a breath? If so, stop now and breath IN). Said friend had tried it out and and reported that it worked well and was good buy. What said friend failed to mention was that he had inadvertently filled it up and used it with 2 stroke. But as any Honda connoisseur knows, they run on 4 stroke. On first use the entire engine casing split in two and our local repairer of all things mechanical, the snake hipped Monsieur L, pronounced it 'complètement foutu' and beyond repair. Said friend shrugged his shoulders and was in no hurry (then or ever since) to refund the money. The foutued strimmer is still sitting in the barn as a dreadful warning not to buy things from mates in the future!

Those who have been reading for a while will remember that when our very expensive Honda mower died a death not four years after it's purchase I replaced it with a very cheap one that came in an unbranded box marked 'Lawnmower', much to the disgust of the CH. Needless to say, you do get what you pay for and the unbranded Chinese lawnmower has currently gone tech. But with several viewings on the house this week, I felt that the unkempt look of the lawn was reducing our kerb appeal - and as an acolyte of Phil and Kirsty, I know how important kerb appeal is.

The trouble with our lawn is that it was originally a field and if you turn your back on it for a minute, it reverts to the sort of lawn only really suitable for a herd of Limousin cows, in fact, Mellors, my old gardener, suggested we do just that. Cheeky bugger! So with the Chinese Lawnmower out of action I had to resort to trying to tame the lawn with our recently acquired (for 30 euros from another friend - some people never learn!) Ryobi strimmer.

I've always had this vague idea that strimming the lawn would be a relatively calm affair, all you have to do is hook it up to your harness and off you go, creating a bowling green from the cow pasture in wide, sweeping arcs. Maybe if you have a bowling green to start with some sort of neat, surburban affair can be achieved but trust me, if you start off with a field, you end up with a field, only this time it looks like it's had a bad haircut.

The first problem was adjusting the harness so the strimmer sat at the right level. Obviously if you do this before you start it's hugely helpful because trying to adjust it at the same time as trying not to amputate your toes, or those of your nearest and dearest, is more tricky than it looks. Actually no, the first problem is getting the damn thing started. All you do, says the CH, is press the priming thingy eight times then pull on the starting cord thingy, it fires up and off you go. It took me half an hour and lots of swearing to start the damn thing. Why can't things just have keys?

Next you don your goggles - absolutely vital in order to avoid corneal abrasions which are incredibly painful. That's when you discover that your eyes can actually sweat! I used to have a full face mask but..... oh it's another long story involving the same friend who sold me the Honda strimmer but yet again I seem to have come off worst.

All kitted up you meander round the garden swinging your strimmer and in an hour or so, voila, a nice neat lawn. Not so in my case. Your strimmer alternately digs large holes in the lawn and bounces off the tops of the long clumps of grass, spraying you with chopped up dog poo that Prudence, the golden non-retriever, has left behind. Words will be had with the offspring, who's job it is to collect said excrement and dispose of it on a daily basis. It seems that standards are slipping on the Homestead.

A slip of the strimmer and you've beheaded the daffodils and narrowly missed a chicken but you press on gamely. You strim and strim some more, trying to recreate the wicket at the Oval, but what you get bears more resemblance to the Somme the day after.

By now, you've lost all feeling in your hands, so much so that the concentration required to peel the potatoes for supper is such that you might need for splitting the atom with a chisel and a hammer. You look down at your clothes - decent ones which you probably should have changed - and discover that you are now covered in a fine layer of grass cuttings and other things that you decide not to look at too closely. Not only that but the juicy grass has left, well, juice all over you and your white leather trainers are now lime green.

Eventually the petrol runs out and you breathe a sigh of relief and swear that you'll pay someone to do it for you in future. You step back to admire your handiwork. It looks more like the Russian Steppes than a lawn. In fact it looks more like the Spanish Steps.

On the plus side though, you congratulate yourself on all the useful items that your strimming has revealed. The missing head to the pool brush, about 20 pegs, a screwdriver and the dog lead.