In the garden
THE RHS has taken leave of its senses, telling us to share our gardens with slugs, wasps and vine weevils. This is bad news for plants— which are what the RHS is all about—and it’s not what gardeners want to hear. When they have a problem with pests, they need to be told how to solve it. What they don’t want is a sermon on how they should befriend these darling little critters in their flowerbeds and kitchen gardens. It’s like asking a doctor for help with your personal creepy crawlies and being told to welcome the lice in your hair and the fleas on the dog.
I do not want aphids in my garden. They suck the sap of my roses, distort the growth and carry virus diseases. But the RHS calls them ‘an important part of many food chains, supporting many predators’ and therefore, ‘part of a balanced garden ecosystem’. It tells us to wait patiently until wasps and ladybirds eat them. I quite like ladybirds, although they don’t always turn up when I need them, but I don’t want the wasps anywhere in my garden. They get in the way and quickly turn nasty.
Hornets are worse. They are noisy, big and frightening. Heaven knows why the Germans give them statutory protection. And now we must contend with the Asian hornets, which are much less cuddly because their nests are enormous and they prey on our beehives. No doubt the time will come when the RHS considers them ‘part of a balanced garden ecosystem’.
I don’t want red spiders on my tomatoes, dirty brown grubs in my apples, maggots in my carrots or wireworms in my potatoes. Nor do I want vine weevils. Many years ago, when the plant-conservation movement was getting under way, I took on a National Collection of European Primulas. The easy species and cultivars, including hybrids of our native primroses and cowslips, we planted in the garden, where they flourished. The rare and difficult ones— species with strange names such as P. kitaibeliana from inaccessible habitats such as the Velebit mountains in Croatia —we grew in clay pots and kept in a cold greenhouse where we could protect them from English rain.
A beautiful hybrid that came from a Sussex nursery brought us the gift of vin
