A few weeks ago, Melania Trump came in for some ridicule; although unusually on this occasion there was a horticultural slant. She was photographed planting a tree while wearing stilettos and a $4,000 skirt. I have no quibble with her wardrobe although it must have been a touch awkward. However, one gardening writer levelled criticism at the fact that she was holding a shovel rather than a spade.
I suppose you could just about plant a tree with a shovel, but the criticism in this case was somewhat misplaced because the tool in question was arguably an American digging spade with a long straight handle. Yes, tools do vary around the world and long-handled spades are generally much more common in America and elsewhere than in Britain, where almost all spades (and forks) have short handles and a “T”-piece or a “D” at the top.
Nonetheless, the Melania tree-planting exercise made me think about how set in our ways we are with gardening equipment. I admit I am a bit perverse in the use of my spring-tine rake, which I find most valuable when turned on its back and used to prepare a fine tilth for sowing seeds – it works much better upside down than the right way up.
That you need horses for courses, however, became apparent when I turned my attention to the lawn, which is looking somewhat sad – like most others after the long hot summer. As I wrote some weeks ago, lawns will recover eventually because grass is almost never killed by a drought, but there is nonetheless a fair amount of dead thatch and moss that is impeding new growth.
If you have a small lawn, then a spring-tine rake (used the right way up) will prove excellent at pulling it out. On a large area, however, it becomes a masochist’s business and you then need a powered scarifier. Most small electric models do an admirable job but again are really only suited to fairly modest lawns.
On my large lawns, I decided last week to try a model of petrol-engined cylinder lawn mower with interchangeable cartridges – you can remove the cutting blades and replace them with scarifier tines. I was disappointed, however, for while the engine clearly has the power to cut grass most effectively, it baulked quite badly at my dense thatch and I resorted to hiring a purpose-made machine. The drawback with any scarifying is that you produce mountains of dead stuff and when much of the mountain comprises moss, it will compost very slowly and inadequately. A better option is to bag it up and take it to the local recycling centre.
Mrs Trump, however, has served most usefully to offer a reminder that the tree planting season is upon us. Trees from containers can now be planted safely, although you should wait a few weeks for any bare-rooted stock. But, planting a new container-raised plum tree in a part of my lawn yesterday, I was struck by just how many tools I needed to do it properly. I had a half-moon lawn edger to take out a square metre or so of turf, a fork to loosen the compacted soil, a spade to dig the hole and a trowel to work in some bonemeal before again I turned to the spade to refill the hole. Then I used that most invaluable of all tools – the heel of my boot – to firm it in. Now that is certainly something the First Lady could not have managed with her stilettos.
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This article appears in the 03 Oct 2018 issue of the New Statesman, The fury of the Far Right