Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 116, 6 August 1927, Page 20

Mundane Musings

Adam the Gardener

As a rule 1 have only the friendliest feelings for George. I may even say that I am fond of George. I am nearly certain that George is the kind of man one would go to in an emergency; but as I have never yet had an emergency to go to George in, I cannot say this for certain. My pain, therefore, at finding George exhibiting quite un-George-like qualities may be imagined. It was when I took George round the garden that these sinister symptoms began to appear. I was just about to point out my clever arrangement of the alyssum border round the centre bed when I saw George looking at the antirrhinums. I suppose there was no reason why George should not look at the antirrhinums; but I felt he had no business to look at them like that. are antirrhinums. George,” T explained kindly. “A useful perennial,”

I added. I had not studied my gardening calendar for nothing. “I know,” said George. “Did you pinch, them?” “My dear George! Are you insulting me?” “Because, you ought to,” said George. He bent down and pinched the tops off several before T could stop him. “They grow, better. You’ve planted them too close together.” I stared at George. I had always thought George knew his place. That was one of the things I liked about him. “When I wish for advice about the spacing of my antirrhinums, George,” 1 said, coldly, “1 will ask you for it.” “That’s right,” said George, cheerfully. 1 realised, with a shock, that ho had dared to take my words literally, “What do you think of my pansies, George?” I asked, controlling myself. “Violas,” said George. “They’re not so forward as mine. Did you put a top-dressing of leaf soil when you planted them?” “No,” I replied. I wondered how it was that I had never noticed this objectionable strain in George. “I do not care for leaf soil. When the gardener said, ‘Shall X put some leaf soil down for the pansies, madam ’ ” “Violas,” said George. “I said, ‘on no account put any leaf soil down for the pansies, Giles.’ ” “That’s funny,” said George. “Not at all. I do not agree ” “I meant your gardener being called Giles. I once had a gardener called Giles, but I had to give him the sack.” "Indeed! Why?” “He’d forgotten to put the leaf soil down for the violas.” Remembering the laws of hospitality, I tried to keep my sudden dislike of George from creeping into my face. “Have you any criticism,” I asked, with rapier-like sarcasm, “to pass on the dahlias?” “Dots,” replied George. “For one thing, you haven’t got them in the right aspect. They want the maximum of sunlight, and you’ve put them where they’ll get about the minimum. Then, you ought to have put stakes in to protect the young plants from slugs and earwigs.” “I see,” I said icily. “1 suppose the slugs and earwigs have such fun running up and down the stakes that they forgot all about the young plants.” “Talking of earwigs,” said George, brightly, “1 suppose you know the best way to trap them?” “Certainly. Giles sets the earwig trap every night. I often wake up to hear them screaming.” “A better way,” said George, “is to put hay in small pots inverted on the stakes, and entice them into it.”

“My dear George,” I said, “if you think I have nothing better to do with my feminine charms than vamp earwigs, you are much mistaken.” George bummed. There was something peculiarly maddening about the way George hummed. “There’s a snail,” said George, suddenly. lie leapt on it with a horrible expression, all the primitive man’s blood-lust distorting his naturally amiable features. “The best thing to do with snails is to throw them in strongly saline water ” “George!” I thundered, roused at last. “Put that snail down!” He dropped it with a start. “My dear girl! iSurely you know snails are the very dickens ” "I don’t care what snails are. I consider your suggestion both brutal and unpractical. For one thing, it’s my snail, and I suppose I can have snails in my own garden if I want to. For another, there isn’t any strongly saline water.” “You’ll never get a decent garden,” George protested, “while you allow pests in it.” “Exactly,” I replied. “Therefore iet us go in, George.” * * * George, I am glad to say, has quite recovered from his sudden attack of self-assertiveness. Since he seems to be finding his place again, I am hoping it was only a temporary disorder. Curious, that it should take so gentle a thing as a garden to rouse the old Adam in a man. . . . But now I think of it, it was a garden with which the old Adam was first connected.