Our trade magazine, Commercial Horticulture, keeps talking about the New Zealand do it yourself ethic having been replaced by “Do it for me”. You can see this in the explosion of lawnmowing contractors, section maintenance people and landscapers. Even I will admit that not everybody derives the same pleasure from gardening and being creative with plants that we do here.

But I had somebody in recently who told me a horror story which may serve as a cautionary tale. Uncertain what to do with her large section which had some mature plantings, she engaged the services of somebody who called himself a landscaper. She thought she had made it clear what she wanted – a pretty garden which complemented her period villa. Alas she came home from work one lunchtime to find he had chainsawed out all her trees, including her mature apples and plums. She was simply devastated. This cowboy “landscaper” planned to create a minimalist garden in their place – rocks and spiky things and grasses.
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Anything La Bella Italia is the New Cool.

Glam gardening is the fashion of the new millenium.

I decided this, dear Reader, based on rather slender evidence but everywhere I look, I see confirmation of these two conclusions. Time was when anything from France was the height of sophistication and style but these days it is Italy that is in vogue. Italian gardening, Italian cooking (anything with olive oil and sun dried tomatoes), to Italian shoes and handbags, to clipped cypresses and tiled entranceways – all add up to Italian style. And we want it, indoors and out.
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I have never forgotten nursery colleagues of ours saying that they grew daphnes and lemon trees “because pretty well every garden has at least one of each”. In the case of daphnes, it is a continuing market because they need replacing now and again and there is always room for one more.

For most people, daphnes begin and end with odora – the fragrant and delightful shrub in flower now. In fact there are about fifty different species, although the number commercially available in this country is closer to four or five and there are probably a thousand odora selections sold to every one of the others.
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When our children were little, we used to read them a small book called “Noisy Nora”. Her refrain was, ‘ “I’m back again,” said Nora, with a monumental crash.’

I am back again, dear Readers, although perhaps not with the monumental crash.
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I just love bureaucrats. They are such a wonderful source of ridicule. Farming readers will be busy jumping through the same hoops as nursery people and even section maintenance operators – undergoing mandatory courses in agrichemicals in preparation for the January deadline after which one won’t be able to buy many basic chemicals unless one has the magic certificate.

Mark obediently trotted off and did his course last year (if only I could remember where I filed the certificate….). In principle you can’t argue with the logic of attempting to educate people in the safe use of chemicals. There are dangers and pitfalls in their usage and countless tales of abuse and bad effects. So while Mark prides himself on being a relatively safe operator, he didn’t really complain.
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