RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33857, 31 May 1975, Page 23

RANDOM REMINDER

BRUTE’S STRENGTH

The delights of suburban gardening are well known. There are few ways of spending the week-end which are more enjoyable than tending the garden. A few of the ways which are, in fact, more enjoyable are the activities of picnicking, sleeping, golfing, reading, sunbathing in season, driving round the suburbs to see other people gardening, visiting the Botanic Gardens to see what it should look like when it has been done, and sleeping. But the garden still has to be done. Besides, as everyone knows, a wellkept garden adds to the value of the property. There are three detriments to one of these well-kept gardens. In any order of severity they are: animals, children, and masters of the house who have no natural or inherent undertanding of a suburban garden. Each of these detri-

ments has its own major characteristic, and they also overlap to some extent. The identifying characteristic of the doggy (and female) kind of animal is the bright orange and circular arrangements of burnt and dying grass she creates on the lawn to no particular over-all pattern; the circles vary from 6in to Win in diameter, depending on how long she had been indoors beforehand. She also tends to dig things up. Depending on their age, children will be either spraying the material from their sandpit over the surrounding lawn and paths, or building an example of an Asian slum in the fork of a tree. They will also be digging things up for no discernible reason. For his part, the master will be doing his best. If he is the sort which cannot seem to learn about plants he will top

off his grass mowing and edge trimming by enthusiastically weeding a large area of the flower garden — and heaven help anything which was not displaying an actual bloom at the time. On a certain week-end which springs to mind the master of a certain house which springs to mind had done his best. Later, in the dusk, she went outside to observe the result of his labours and to rehearse suitable phrases of commendation. With a sudden stab of dismay she realised that a favourite patch of her garden was looking ominously bare. Taking the torch from inside she went to the compost bin. After a little while she had sorted out what she was seeking. She gave all her Sweet Williams as comfortable a position for the night as possible preparatory to replanting them the next day.