In Conversation- With a Gardener

 

Interviewer Today’s meeting of ‘In Conversation’ is with one of the recent bloomers of the gardening fraternity. A man celebrated for his TV series and recent book, both entitled ‘Dirty Fingers.’ Using my questions as a metaphorical trowel, I will attempt to dig through the surface, to get down to the very roots of   a man considered by Alan Titchmarsh as being ‘gardening’s equivalent to the atom bomb,’ Jeremy Parky-Bewes.

 

Jeremy Hello to you!

 

Interviewer Hello. Now, Jeremy, to start with, tell me something of your background.

 

Jeremy Well I must say I did enjoy a rather privileged upbringing. My father – Darkly Parky-Bewes was the Earl of Poppetts and as such owned a pretty large estate in the Berkshire countryside. We had servants, large grounds and a beautiful country house that dated back to the 1600’s sometime or other.

 

Interviewer And it was your father, wasn’t it, who first introduced you to the joys of the garden?

 

Jeremy Yes indeed. As a boy, my father would sometimes take me with him on his afternoon strolls which took us down the lane to the servant’s quarters and he’d often pause by a certain hedge – beautiful hedge it was, extraordinarily green- and he’d pull the leaves apart and peep through into a garden which fronted the maids quarters. I could see why he had brought me to this spot as there were some quite magnificent sights as you looked beyond the loungers where the maids were sunbathing in their bikinis and onto flowerbeds of begonias, hyacinths, parthinias, sunflowers, a wonderful kaleidoscope of colour that lit up my eyes. I could hear my father grunting his own approval at this very wonderful sight, sweat dripping off his brow.

 

Interviewer Your father was something of an amateur gardener then?

 

Jeremy Oh my word yes! I often saw him out on the grounds, one of the maids up a ladder sawing the branches and him underneath her, holding the ladder and supervising. He loved to talk to the flowers as well. He loved that. And I remember sometimes the conversations could get quite heated. I’ll never forget  one argument with a chrysanthemum who he came to believe was querying his belief that ducks make poor travel companions- ‘they just flap about!’ He’d say. I recall him shaking his fist at one point, pointing and cursing the flower for its impudence, ‘don’t shake your head at me you swine!’ It was a real ding-ding.

 

Interviewer And what was the outcome of all this?

 

Jeremy Well eventually my father was forced to back down and he conceded to the chrysanthemum that maybe he was being a little harsh on ducks but that he would certainly never travel with a chinchilla. The matter was brought to a successful conclusion.

 

Interviewer Extraordinary. But isn’t it correct that your true mentor, the man who guided you and taught you the practical side of gardening was the manor gardener?

 

Jeremy Yes, Oakes. A wonderful man. He has been head gardener on the estate for about the last eighty years. I owe him everything really. I was a boy of fifteen, he a man of eighty-two, but still mowing and pruning and propagating. I would follow him around the estate holding his equipment. He’d stop by a patch of sod and demand a trowel or a fork or a daisy-grubber. He taught me about the importance of light and moisture, wind and bottom heat. But he was a joker too. I remember kneeling by a vegetable patch and asking if it was too moist. ‘At my age,’ he said, ‘it’s always too moist.’ And we’d laugh and he’d go and change his trousers. A wonderful man.

 

Interviewer And I heard that for his eighty-eighth birthday you got him a very special gift.

 

Jeremy Yes, a false leg. He only had the one you see, an accident during the war. He was a mine layer and he’d just hidden one in the African desert and was patting the sand down with his foot and it exploded. Tragic. They had a very poor design.

 

Interviewer And from then on he was a one-legged gardener?

 

Jeremy For the next forty years or so, yes. But he was a wonderful hopper, he could bounce around the grounds at tremendous speed. And when he wanted to get close to the ground for a little scarifying of the grass he would just allow himself to kind of keel over. He’d start like the Leaning Tower of Piza and just keep going. But after about forty or so years of this toppling over I thought it was about time he had another leg to play with. I had a bit of spare cash on me, the racing had been cancelled so I did what any decent man would do and demanded one for him from the NHS. He moves a little like C-3PO now but he seems happy enough.

 

Interviewer Still working for you?

 

Jeremy Oh yes. He’s one hundred and two now.

 

Interviewer You of course achieved your breakthrough as a gardener with your commission from Lord Halifax. Tell me about that.

 

Jeremy Hah! Good old Bertie. Yes he commissioned me for a very special project. He wanted his own garden to resemble his wife Petulia’s face when seen from a helicopter. So I worked with him and created the garden to his own specifications. A rather eccentric man, he wanted every one of her features brought out and when it was finished one could make out – at a height of around 100 metres- not just her lazy eye, her nose and rather down-turned mouth -created with Polygonum baldschuanicum- but it was also possible, after six months, to see the sprouting of two warts – thanks to the Escallonia macrantha- and the budding- with a series of dahlias- of her three chins. A dining area was created on one of her chins and it proved a wonderful experience to pass an evening at a summer jamboree or wedding reception on her chin.

 

Interviewer And did Lady Halifax herself approve?

 

Jeremy It’s difficult to say. She left rather abruptly shortly after the work was completed and I was never able to get in contact with her to find out her opinion.

 

Interviewer What a shame.

 

Jeremy Indeed.

 

Interviewer So before we bring this conversation to a close I thought it would be nice to hear a little bit of your gardening wisdom. I have here a couple of letters from members of the public asking for your opinions and considerable knowledge. May I read them?

 

Jeremy Why not.

 

Interviewer Thank you. The first is from a Mrs Tipple from Knotty Bridge, who says, ‘while my husband and I were recently in the greenhouse tending to our ramondias, he remarked that something was causing a drooping effect and that his pricking out was failing to assuage the situation. I tried to use my dibber but there was no hardening apparent, nor did my working fingers help. What do you think we can do as I’m afraid if this continues it may affect our marriage?’

 

Jeremy It certainly sounds like a very serious situation. My belief is that he simply needs to do some drainage. Sometimes you think you have drained sufficiently only to find shortly afterwards that more needs to be done. He must not let his trenches overflow as he could well risk saturating the whole greenhouse. Once your husband has soaked away I am sure the drooping will stop, the hardening will return and your marriage will be saved.

 

Interviewer Some very wise advice. One more letter then. Mr Lards writes from Whimsy in Kent, ‘I recently invested in a Kraps arm support cuff for Easi-Grip trowelling, as I suffer from spasms. But I found that the moment I dug deep into my Bog Plant not only did the spasms start but I also broke both my knee caps, twisted my ankle and suffered severe concussion and ruptured spleen. Do you think there is something wrong with my digging technique?

 

Jeremy  Well, the short answer is yes.

 

Interviewer And the long answer?

 

Jeremy Yeeeeeeeeessssss!!!

 

Interviewer  (Pause) Well, Jeremy Parky-Bewes, that brings us more or less to the end of this programme ‘In Conversation- With a Gardener.’ It just leaves me enough time to ask- what your plans are now?

 

Jeremy Well, I thought about going to the toilet. It’s been a while.

 

Interviewer And then later in the year?

 

Jeremy Oh I shall probably go before then. Oh, I see! Yes, well, my next big project now that the book is completed…

 

Interviewer ‘Dirty Fingers’ priced £22.99.

 

Jeremy That’s right, ‘Dirty Fingers’ priced £22.99. My next big project is my new Garden Hats collection.

 

Interviewer Hats to wear while gardening?

 

Jeremy Oh no no no! No no. These are hats made from the garden. I use a felt base and create upon it a top hat structure that incorporates soil and a mini shrub or flower arrangement within it.

 

Interviewer But won’t the flowers quickly wither and die?

 

Jeremy Ha! I’m way ahead of you there. I’ve guarded against that by building into the hat a clever sheeting device. Your flowers are waning a little, simply tug down the plastic sheeting from within the hat and you can pour water onto it at any time while remaining yourself, dry as a bone.

 

Interviewer Marvellous. Well I wish you all the best with that and so it’s time to say goodbye from me as I bring myself to an end- in conversation with a gardener.

 

Jeremy Toilet please!

 

 

 

 

 

The End