OUR GARDEN GATE IS OPEN TO ALL

OPENING YOUR HEART TO OTHER GARDENERS

Part two - to read Part one click here.

For quite a few years my husband and I have welcomed groups and societies into our town garden. The first time we opened it was for an adult education summer class and they were escorted by a very well known Tasmanian TV and radio personality. I felt extremely shy and informed my husband that I would probably remain inside the house and that it would be much better if he was the garden owner to greet them. He treated this statement with as much scorn as it deserved and disappeared down to the utility area at the bottom of the garden, as far from the garden entrance gate as he could get.

I vanished into the house, not far from the window that would be the best to peep out of when the visitors arrived. Our dog, sadly dead now, was a near black labrador who had the most vicious lip curl and bark imaginable and had never hurt a person in all his years of employment as a guard. I had carefully ensured that he was very happily asleep on our best velvet chair in the sitting-room. When the time of arrival approached, my telephone rang and I happily chatted the minutes away, cunningly thinking I now had a genuine excuse to remain safely away from all those Gertrude Jekylls let loose in my garden!

As I still clung desperately to my lifeline, I heard the most deafening racket, dog barks and shouting voices. I hurried outside to be greeted with the most awful sight. Our dog stood on one side of the garden gate, hair standing upright on her back, full lengths of perfect white teeth bared under the best curled lip I had ever seen her produce. The Tasmanian guru of gardening stood bravely on the other side of the gate with his summer class students trying to shelter behind the shrubs in the "outside the gate garden." My husband was still only halfway up from the bottom of our very long garden. He still swears he had let the dog out only to inform him when the class arrived.

Our second garden visit was a group of dedicated New Zealand gardeners and this time I was given a lesson on how rapidly complete amnesia can strike the garden owner. The mind only needs the one trigger, "What is the name of this plant?" to become a big, black hole of nothingness. It is so embarrassing, and even after opening two gardens many times, I still suffer from the malady. On the occasion of the Kiwis' visit, I escaped from the humiliation by serving a cup of tea to our overseas visitors and taking as long as I could to press them to eat up the Anzac biscuits. Safely chatting away about the beauties of the Tasmanian natural landscapes to an elderly couple, I was interrupted by a deputation of five ladies who pleaded with me to "Please come and tell us what this is. You must come! We are so intrigued!"