Eleven am. Willow and I walk in the Park before I have to go out. It’s a raw February morning but no matter; I am meeting a friend for coffee and a visit to a local Garden Centre. The covered interior is quiet and cool; there are very few visitors today and soon we are befriended by a lone robin that follows us around hopefully; it flies up onto a branch and sings loudly to us like a determined busker.
The subdued atmosphere and huge interior is rather reminiscent of a church. There are similarities to pilgrimages in medieval cathedrals with their side chapels for special treasures: here are velvet gloxinias in jewel colours; delicate streptocarpus and showy orchids; waxy white stephanotis.
There are acolytes giving helpful guidance to people who walk around slowly in small respectful groups, with gasps of admiration for plants of exceptional beauty – and breathless repetitions of the Latin names. The experts hear our confessions of neglect and death before offering absolution. But it is never too late to reform; our sins are forgiven if we are truly sorry and we can try again with a replacement plant in the twinkling of a credit card’s eye.
As in the Church calendar, Garden Centres have their own seasonal festivities; Spring flowers and bulbs, Mother’s Day; early Summer, bedding plants; Autumn colour; Winter interest shrubs and Christmas poinsettias. Like churches, Garden Centres are often busiest at weekends with many more visitors and on weekdays, local community charities bring fragile elderly people in minibuses so that they can wander around in fellowship and drink cups of tea afterwards as they would do after Sunday Service.
There are books on different areas of doctrine; vast tomes relating to heresies or justifying the various dogmas; ‘Organic methods or Weed killers’; ‘Insects – Pests or Benefactors?’; ‘Colours in Design’. There is also a modern wing of young rebels, always ready to challenge the received wisdom of the old order. Such is the religious paradigm, but for now we are safe in the hands of gurus who appear on television and radio programmes offering kindly sermons and advice on best practice. Many of the high priests, whose names are held in great esteem by adherents, write splendid books in later life, often purchased as Christmas gifts. In the shop here they sell gardening books – and candles too – and kneelers.
We could buy a flowering plant (or two) to make an instant impact on our gardens at home but one of the greatest acts of faith is to buy a small packet of seeds, rustling mysteriously inside a sealed foil strip. We prepare a tray with fine soil and opening the packet, pour their tiny loveliness into the palm of our hand. Finger tip scatter them, carefully water them and – after a few short weeks – witness a miracle unfolding.
SummerStarfield 