Esther Chilton

It’s Friday and that must mean a new guest for my guest writer slot. This week I’m welcoming back Jean Harris. She first appeared in this slot a few weeks ago with her super piece, A Safe Place. She’s back with another piece of writing to make you smile:

Green Fingers

By

Jean Harris

Summer’s here and I’m not enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the warmth of the sunshine and lovely light evenings. There’s nothing like waking up to beautiful birdsong and a deep blue sky.

Gardens look glorious in summer, bursting with blooms of every colour and description. It’s just that mine doesn’t. And that’s where the problem lies.

Last summer, I vowed things would be different. I even bought an Alan Titchmarsh book. It was fantastic with glossy pictures and he made it look so easy. If Alan thought my garden could be transformed, then transformed it would be.

I started by mowing the lawn. Next-door’s grass always looks like plush carpet after it’s mown. Mine looked more like I’d attacked it with a knife and fork by the time I’d finished with it.

It didn’t help that the lawn mower kept making funny noises and juddering to a halt every time it went within three feet of a stone. Perhaps if I hadn’t nearly gone flying over the mower each time it stopped, it wouldn’t have seemed so bad.

I thought I’d try the hedges next. Next-door they’ve shaped theirs into fabulous foxes and chickens. It all looks so simple. A bit of trimming here. A bit of trimming there.

I took it steady and I did have a shape at the end of my efforts – more of a blobby alien than a twee animal though. Still, it was original and they didn’t have anything like that in the book.

Weeding came after the hedges. I thought I was very good at weeding. The cat even joined in. We were going great guns until my next-door neighbour pointed out that the idea was to leave the flowers in and pull the weeds out, not the other way round.

Well, some of the weeds looked very pretty and perky, better than half my flowers were, in fact. I decided to move on to something else.

The fence was looking a little worn and in need of some care. Painting was nothing to do with gardening, so I was sure I couldn’t go wrong there. My side looked lovely. It was just that my neighbour wasn’t too impressed with the dark brown streaks down his side. I thought it broke up his green rather well.

I had almost given up with the garden by this time when the idea of a hanging basket came into my mind. They look so striking – a little garden in miniature. If that worked well, I thought I’d be adventurous and move on to some tubs.

I bought all the proper stuff and followed all the instructions. It’s a pity I didn’t see the part about making sure there’s a drainage hole in the bottom. Though my busy lizzies did look rather spectacular, if only for a few days. I decided to give the tubs a miss.

So here it is, that time of year again. Though this year I’m determined it will be different. I know I’ve left it a bit late as we’re almost into August, but I will have a luscious green carpet of lawn and sea of flowers on view every time I look out the window. I think I’ll have two hanging baskets and tubs at the front and back. I wonder what the going rate for a gardener is these days…    

Jean Harris loves reading and always enjoyed writing at school. Now she’s retired, she’s decided it’s time she started writing again.  

 If you’d like to be included in my guest writer slot, please get in touch: estherchilton@gmail.com. Poems can be up to 60 lines and prose 2000 words. If you’d like to add a short bio and photo, then grea