by Tom Fort
Then they return to the real garden, where the season
begins with a tremendous burst of zeal and a series of expensive sorties to gardening centres and nurseries, and ends with a list as long as your arm of things done wrong, half-done and left undone, and yet another resolution that all will be different next year; where the tedious lawn is not dug up, because the reality of what would go in its place is no reality at all. In the real garden, the real gardener – short of time, money and creative imagination – needs, not a load of half-digested fancy stuff from a smart-arsed television celebrity, but sound advice from a trusted source firmly located in the real world. Just as our forebears got it from John James of Greenwich, so do we get it in the books of the wholly untelevisual, totally real Doctor David Hessayon.
The Hessayon phenomenon – measured in the most obvious fashion by the staggering sales of his gardening manuals – provides a revealing insight into what actually goes on in the ordinary gardens of Britain. The Doctor does not share a gardening world with Beth Chatto, Stephen Lacey and Roy Lancaster, or even Alan Titchmarsh and the late Geoff Hamilton. His garden is as far removed from theirs as the typical suburban home is from Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst or Christopher Lloyd’s Great Dixter.
Doctor Hessayon’s literary ability is non-existent, his style is reminiscent of that of a conscientious A-level student. His voice is like that of the man who runs the local ironmonger’s, flat and dull. But if you take the trouble to listen, you will get the information you need. Even if he were capable of pretentiousness, of frills, of flights of the imagination (which one strongly doubts), Doctor Hessayon would repudiate them. His mission is information. His genius is to apprehend the scale of the division between fancy and reality, and to retail his wares in the world of the real garden.
The Hessayon concept begins with the lawn. One suspects that he could no more imagine a garden without a lawn than himself leaving his house without his trousers on. When his manual on lawn care first appeared, in the mid-1960s, it was called Be Your Own Lawn Expert, and cost two-and-sixpence. In its most recent incarnation, it is entitled The New Lawn Expert and costs just under six pounds. The use of the word ‘new’ is deceptive. Its increased size is largely accounted for by a more extravagant use of illustration, by some introductory words extolling Britain as ‘the home of the Beautiful Lawn’ and the virtues of the Hessayon approach in keeping it that way, and two additional chapters – one dealing with the history of the lawn, the other consisting of a succession of tepid nods in the direction of alternatives to the lawn (‘much is written these days about the wild flower meadow … in reality this form of ground cover is difficult to create and even more difficult to maintain’). The section dealing with ‘Lawn Troubles’ is also considerably expanded, on the principle that the more we know about our enemies, the more efficiently we may dispose of them.
In essence, though, the word according to Doctor Hessayon has not changed in thirty years. He opens by defining the grades of lawn, in the way that the manager of a tailor’s might display the various classes of cloth. At the top comes the first-rate lawn (luxury grade), exclusively of bents and fescues, to be ‘seen by all but walked on by very few’. Beneath that come the first-rate lawn (utility grade), with ryegrass and broad-leaved grasses predominant – ‘for living on rather than just looking at’; the second-rate lawn, afflicted by various failings but capable of being nursed back to health; and finally the worn-out lawn, consisting of moss, weeds and bare earth, and beyond redemption.
The fundamentals of the programme for the care of the lawn are unvaried: mowing, raking, spiking, top dressing, fertilizer application, edge trimming, moss, weed and pest extermination. There are occasional variations in detail between early and contemporary Hessayon (mysteriously, the fertilizer spreader is relegated from being an essential in 1967 to being an extra in 1999, while the ‘straight plank’ – to check for bumps and hollows – leaps from nowhere into the indispensable category). But on the great issues, Hessayon has not changed his mind – on watering, for instance. To him, a lawn the colour of a biscuit is no lawn at all. Unmoved by cries for conservation, unaffected by any doubt about the sense of lavishing thousands of gallons of water on a plant which is exceptional in its reluctance to die of thirst, the Doctor tells his disciples that at the first sign of trouble – which he identifies as a loss of ‘springiness’ – they must start watering thoroughly; and continue to do so until such time as rain comes to their aid, or the water companies indulge their ‘maddening habit’ of enforcing a hose-pipe ban.
When it comes to what he coyly calls ‘Lawn Troubles’, Doctor Hessayon’s imperviousness to environmental concerns and concepts of correctness is even more striking. Weeds are ‘plants growing in the wrong place … that means any plant which is not a variety of grass recommended for turf cultivation’. Such plants must be persuaded to refrain from reproduction and absent themselves, or be destroyed with a systemic weedkiller. On the subject of pests, the doctor has become more intolerant with age. In the sixties, the enemies were two in number: earthworms and ants. But by the turn of the millennium their ranks had swelled to include leatherjackets (‘the worst of all insect pests’), chafer grubs, moles (‘one of the saddest sights in gardening is to see a fine, even lawn suddenly ruined by moles’), birds (‘sparrows can be a problem on newly seeded lawns’) and bitches (‘dogs are no respecters of lawns’).
The earthworm remains at the top of the list. Hessayon dismisses the case presented by the creature’s defenders – ‘they are supposed to have a beneficial effect by producing drainage holes within the soil … the harm caused by the mounds of coiled sticky earth which they produce far outweighs any benefits’. He rues the day that most efficient worm destroyer, chlordane, was outlawed, which has reduced the worm-hating lawn-lover to brushing away the casts with a besom and applying lawn sand. The Doctor refrains from calling for the execution of marauding bitches, noting with resignation that there are ‘no effective repellents’. But grubs and ants are simply begging to be subjected to chemical attack, while there can be no sentimentality in dealing with the mole – ‘moles tend to return if they are not killed … poisoning is the alternative method of killing moles’.
It is not difficult to mock the doctor, to laugh at him for his intolerance and dogmatism, his primitive English style, his allegiance to the doctrine of the lawn’s racial purity, his disdain for experts and his comically dreary ideas about garden design; to see him as a dim, suburban spokesman on behalf of the horti-chemical industry. That is to miss the point, which is that he is right. The Word of Hessayon is utterly sound. An alliance between the climate of the British Isles and careful adherence to his instructions will produce the Beautiful Lawn.
The doctor’s great gift is that he speaks to Everyman: the man who is quite content with the mediocre, the man who aspires a little higher, the man whose soul is moved by a true passion for grass. Unlike so many self-appointed authorities, he does not attempt to deceive his public by disguising the unattainable as the commonplace. He tells it as it is: that what you get depends on how much you are prepared to put in. He apprehends a significant truth, which is that the lawn requires no talent, no flair. It is quite unlike other elements of the garden. There is no individuality to it, no need for ‘green fingers’. It is, quite simply, a matter of committing the effort and expenditure that the various steps in the programme require, and performing the specified functions in the right order, at the right time. The extent to which the lawn owner commits himself determines the quality of his lawn. It is prosaic, and obvious, and boring: and three and a quarter million copies of Doctor Hessayon’s lawn manual are powerful evidence of how dearly we cherish those qualities.
MUSINGS FROM THE SHED
(2)
Lawn Order, Man’s Business
One man went to mow.
Went to mow a meadow …
It would have to be a man. No one would write a poem or song, however absurd and repetitive, a
bout a woman mowing anything. That is not to say that women have not mown meadows and lawns, and don’t; merely that there is nothing to celebrate or remark upon when they do. My mother, who is eighty-five, cuts her patch of front lawn with a tiny, mains-driven machine which can be lifted with one hand. She does it, but she does not expatiate on the subject, which I own I occasionally do. The affinity between the male and mowing – whether scything hay or cutting cultivated grass – is set in stone.
Where lawns are concerned, it is also perceived as an Anglo-Saxon peculiarity. Lawns are, of course, grown, maintained and held dear across the world; but, for cultural and climatic reasons, the passion for the sward is grouped by the world into the corpus of English idiosyncrasies. There is a scene in one of the Asterix books in which the hero, pursued in his cart by a Roman patrol, takes off from the straight road across country. In his path is the lawn of an ancient Briton, on the edge of which stands his thatched cottage. The Englishman, a ludicrous caricature in handlebar moustaches, waistcoat and breeches, is seen contentedly emptying his watering can over the sward. He bends to behead an aberrant dandelion, murmuring: ‘Another two thousand years of loving care, and I think it’ll make quite a decent bit of turf.’ ‘Oh, I say,’ he expostulates as Asterix’s cart gouges trenches across his pride and joy, ‘that’s a bit off.’ The pursuing Romans arrive, and the Englishman’s slowly aroused dander is up. ‘Here, I say, sir, please keep off the grass,’ he protests. The centurion bellows at him to let the emissaries of Rome pass, but the Englishman will not budge: ‘My garden is smaller than your Rome, but my pilum is harder than your sternum,’ he ripostes, jabbing his spear into the centurion’s midriff.
Mowing, then, is man’s work. Historically, this may be explained by the physical demands. But the gender division goes much deeper than mere ease of use. For the male, there is something symbolically fulfilling in it; as there is in, say, cleaning a car. Women do, of course, clean cars, but the performance is unlikely to be tinged with ritualistic significance. For many male owners, the car fulfils the role of hunting trophy – useful, like meat, but more than that: a symbol of power and success.
Research carried out in the United States illustrates the different way in which men and women view the garden. Put simplistically, women tend to have a wider apprehension of the idea of ‘home’, in which the dwelling and its garden belong to each other, and are enhanced by each other. Just as the rooms, while discharging various and particular functions, contribute to the whole, so does the garden. And the garden itself is seen as an integrated, personal micro-environment, whose heterogeneous elements are – or should be – in harmony with each other, dependent upon each other, complementing each other.
For the female gardener, the lawn is no more than one constituent of the whole, and one of the least interesting. She sees the grass in relation to what is around it, or enclosed by it – shrubs, flower beds, trees, terrace, pond, bird bath, and so on. If necessary, she will give it time and effort, but only as much as is necessary for it to play its part in the overall scheme. Of itself, it is a bore and a chore; and if someone else, whether for money or for some impenetrable motive, can be persuaded to take it off her hands, so much the better.
For the male – domesticated hunter-gatherer and demobilized warrior – the garden is separate from the house, its character entirely distinct. It represents his old adversary, Nature, annexed and subjugated; but with its genetic links to wilderness origins still intact, and therefore still capable of resistance and even – if left to itself – reversion. It comprises an assortment of challenges to his assumption of control. There are trees to be kept in order, hedges to be clipped, mounds of rubbish to be burned or turned into useful compost, paths to be laid, fences to be put up, greenhouses and sheds to be assembled and maintained: a whole system of symbols of Man’s civilizing authority. Of these symbols, the lawn is perhaps the most satisfying, and most cherished.
The appeal of the lawn to the conventional masculine temperament is rich and many-layered. It is a province of its own, its distinctness defined by its clean-edged boundaries. It requires specialized instruments to keep it in order, specialized foods and tonics to keep it healthy. Because of the way grass grows, its care is highly congenial to the repetitive rituals with which men like to organize their lives. The lawn is like a dog which must, come what may, be exercised. It is dependent on its carer, and that dependence quietly nourishes his ego. Like his wife and children, the lawn demands his protection. But, unlike them, it does not strike back; and, unlike them, it responds reliably to his love and attention.
Although the lawn co-exists with flower beds, to the lawnsman this is no more than a sharing of space. In its nature it is as distinct as fish from fowl. Grass is uniform in colour, predictable in behaviour, needing no more than the careful observance of an unchanging routine to be kept healthy. In contrast, flowers are fickle and unreliable, their variations in colour and habit making them hostile to the notion of regularity. To prosper, they demand an almost mystical sympathy, which cannot be purchased from the garden centre, nor easily acquired from a manual of instruction. To the lawnsman, the flower bed is terra incognita, where a woman’s intuitive sense permits her, and her only, to wander in safety.
Anyway, he has enough on his hands. For, to the role of faithful pet, the lawn adds that of model battlefield. It is under constant attack and threat from a host of invaders, insurgents and undercover agents. They lay siege from without, they nibble away at the body politic from within. Weed seeds parachute in from neighbouring fields of racially inferior meadow grass. Plantains, daisies and buttercups infiltrate the defences. Moss appears from God knows where. Leatherjacket grubs gnaw the tender roots, producing brown plague spots. Moles sneak in underground, rabbits overground. Earthworms by the million foul the turf with their slippery extrusions. Wandering cats crap and bitches spray their discolouring piss.
As he becomes aware of the range of his adversaries, the lawnsman with a properly developed sense of duty learns that his obligations extend far beyond the weekly mow. As the guardian, he must defend the lawn against those who would do it harm. True, he is but one; and they are many. But fortunately he is bigger, stronger, cleverer and more resourceful than they are. All he has to do is to descend on his local garden centre, help himself from the available stock of armaments and other aids, observe the instructions, and victory will be his.
To contain the weaponry and other necessities, the lawnsman has a command centre, which is his shed. This construction – however ramshackle and leaky it may be – performs another satisfying function, which is to provide him with a sanctum. Here he keeps the mower, and cleans, feeds and repairs it. On some sagging shelf are arranged an array of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, for the shed is field hospital, too. On the floor are dumped sacks of seed and fertilizer, with accessories – sprinkler, spreader, sprayer and the rest – distributed around. The shed has its own smell, like incense and old candle smoke in a church. A man is never short of an excuse to visit his shed.
But I began to suspect that there might be more to the gender issue than this, deeper impulses at work. As a man, I was curious to discover what it was within me that answered to the lawn and the task of ministering to it; why no woman I had ever known or heard of could have cared less about it. I contacted Professor Michael Argyle, the distinguished social psychologist, to ask him. He thought it might have something to do with men liking and using machines at work, and transferring that bias to the garden – which had the additional attraction of permitting them the autonomy and freedom usually denied them by their bosses. He readily agreed that men – himself included – much preferred the destructive side of garden care to the creative. He said his instinctive response on encountering a man with a keen enthusiasm for flowers would be to assume he was homosexual.
I laughed heartily at what I presumed was a joke. However, another notable psychologist, Halla Beloff, told me that displaying interest in, and aptitude for, arran
ging flowers was one of the tried and tested ways of checking on sexual identity and orientation. She agreed with Professor Argyle on the correlation between work at the place of work, and work in the garden. My objection – that most working men had little to do with machines other than computers any more – turned out to be no objection at all. Professor Beloff pointed out that, according to their traditional roles, men should be driving noisy machines, wielding sharp implements and generally deploying their muscle power; and that being frustrated in this role-fulfilment made them all the more inclined to grasp some engine of destruction when they got in the garden.
But what about lawns and mowing, I wanted to know? Professor Beloff laughed. Was I aware, she asked, of the phallic dimension to mowing? I wasn’t. She explained: that the mower was a source and symbol of potency, held out throbbing and thrusting in front of the male at approximately groin level, demanding and securing entry to the world outside, and changing that world. I was stunned. Was this a fantastic example of the psychologist searching within the simple for the unbelievably complex, a piece of grist for the psychobabbling mill? But Professor Beloff seemed far too amiable and sensible to peddle nonsense. And, anyway, what explanation did I have to offer?
I had a thought. How, I asked the professor, could mowing the lawn be equated to vigorous sexual intercourse, the presentation of the mower to the garden with the brandishing of the erect penis, if it happened but once a week? No red-blooded male would acknowledge that he was moved by the impulse on so regular and infrequent a basis (putting aside, for the sake of the argument, any evidence that this is, indeed, the pattern of most sexual activity within marriage in our society).
Professor Beloff declined to be knocked off course. She asserted that the phallic substitute was merely one aspect of the positive image of the mower, and that it was held in balance by another – which was that the comparative infrequency of the activity inhibited it from becoming a household chore. Household chores, she explained, were performed by women, and tended, by their nature, to be daily: cooking, cleaning, looking after children, tidying. It was one more illustration of the way in which the labours arising from the human condition had been divided in favour of men. Would I, she wondered, be so keen on doing the mowing if it had to be done every day? I gave in.