The second year of the new millennium ended here as it began with snow and frost. On the whole, 2001 was a wet year with above average rainfall and a very lengthy, warm autumn. So warm was the month of October that it broke records going back over three hundred years. It seems clearer than ever that Global Warming is far more than just a clever theory dreamt up by ecologists around the world.
I've never been one for New Year resolutions on the whole. Having a more pragmatic nature usually dictates that I don't indulge in this universal self-flagellation. This New Year, however, might be different.
Gardening, wherever it is practised is a hard taskmaster at the best of times. For one thing, you never ever stop learning and the best of well-laid plans often go awry. Urban gardeners tend to be masochists by nature, often coping with builder's rubble masquerading as garden soil and deep shade, casting gloom on their efforts. I'm sure our more rural cousins have their quota of problems too, it's just that I can't bring any to mind at the moment.
All gardeners though are workaholics and revel in perseverance and honest toil where others would have given up long ago. Some passionate gardeners even look upon their garden plants as part of the family and suffer a grieving period when any much-loved individual fails. I personally do not go quite that far, but dwell more on the money and effort spent.
Plants failing to live up to expectations can be attributed to many causes. Chief amongst these is, of course, a failure to understand the particular plant's requirements. We all try to push the boundaries occasionally by growing plants we know from the start have only a small chance of success. That's part of the challenge of gardening and success when it does come is all the sweeter.
I don't count myself as a member of the frontier gardening fraternity, being much too cautious in my choice of plants to raise much a to-do. I do, however, persist beyond all reason with certain plants I have a liking for. One of my many weaknesses is for climbing plants of all kinds. This has got a lot to do with being short of space. The less space one has, the greater the desire to fill it. Climbing plants expand the growing capacity of smaller gardens. Growing through other shrubs or intertwined with others of their kind, they lend an air of opulence so often lacking in town and city gardens.
