Television gardeners are a serene species. A snip here, a bit of potting there, their spades breaking earth rich and dark as they murmur wise and loving words. The soundtrack is as soft and gentle as the songs of the birds a-chirping their gratitude from the bushes and trees. All is well in the gardens of the television gardeners.
Cut to any gardening show I might present. There would be no birdsong for a soundtrack, only heavy metal, as brutal as the sound of my spade hitting another unmovable rock. When Lemmy got Motörhead together he said its music would be, “loud, fast, city, raucous, arrogant, paranoid, speed-freak rock’n’roll. It will be so loud that if we move in next door to you, your lawn will die.” Yes, Motörhead’s sound will be just the ticket for my gardening show. Not for me the standard vibe of working with nature. It’ll be man v nature, a battle with only one winner, which won’t be me.
There will be no Monty Don padding quietly into shot bearing little plants for potting up that he’s lovingly grown from seed. No dog will snooze sybaritically on the path between the runner beans and the azaleas. Peace is simply not possible in my garden. If I snooze, I lose. As it grows and grows, I have to cut back and cut back. If I don’t, I will be overwhelmed, inundated by a green tide. It’s relentless. The waste is appalling. I borrowed a mate’s chipping machine, like a giant paper shredder into which I feed branches and leaves from a mountainous pile. And the more I cut, the more it grows. I cut back, I gather, I drag, I feed the machine, I lug away bags of dense waste, and so it goes on, ad infinitum, faster and faster, until, soaked with sweat, blood seeping from the scratches on my arms, and my pulse racing at my temples, I sink to my knees, defeated.
Where are the scenes of Monty Don fighting this unwinnable war? I assume there are squads of television production graduates on work experience beavering away out of sight and sound, probably toiling through the night under arc lights. Please someone commission my gardening show. The truth needs to be told.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
