I’ve seen the red mist. Why is the gardener triggering me?

Creating the perfect garden isn’t as simple as Charlotte Cripps imagines – not when she has to deal with an airy-fairy gardener and a dog who destroys the flower beds

Not digging it: The urge to pull the garden up by its roots is hard to resist (Illustration by Amara May)

I’m sick of playing the holiday lottery. Now that Portugal has been taken off the green list, my trip to the Algarve is hanging by a thread. So I’ve booked an idyllic seafront hotel in Cornwall just in case. I had to beg the hotel to squeeze us in, but it means sharing with my 88-year-old dad and the kids in a car park-facing room that is usually used as a pram park.

But I just need a holiday. It’s as simple as that. It has been the same for too long. Everything feels in jeopardy. Lockdown is easing – summer is here – but the British weather is as volatile as the Indian and Nepalese variant; it could all change in a heartbeat.

I’m craving a sanctuary. I turn to my garden – the sun is finally out – and I gasp in horror. I realise we can't even walk across the lawn; it's overgrown and full of dog s**t. It’s like a bombsite. For a minute I think we have moles out there – but it's huge craters dug up by Muggles.

Luckily a local dog walker gives me the number of her gardener. This floaty airy-fairy woman turns up explaining she likes to “put the garden to bed” at the end of the summer. “There’s nothing happening in the garden to put to sleep,” I point out. “It’s as dead as doornail. Can we sort it out?”  She seems to be rubbing me up the wrong way. Especially with comments like, “Do you like cottagey?” Has she had a good look around? This is the back of Ladbroke Grove. You might get away with it up the road in Holland Park, but I’m next to Grenfell Tower.

When she says she needs to do a safety talk with the kids before letting them help her pot some plants, I’m speechless

She asks me if I like pastel or bright colours for plants. “Look at the clothes you wear – what colour schemes do you like?” she asks seriously. I’m permanently in jeans and a T-shirt. “Look at the decor in your flat. What plants will match it?” I point out it’s minimalist and I doubt she will find neutral plants. When she says she needs to do a safety talk with the kids before letting them help her pot some plants, I’m speechless.

She holds up a mini fork-and-trowel set. “Gardening is fun, with a capital ‘F. U. N’,” she says. “But it’s also dangerous because of the tools.”

I’m the type of personality that likes to take the bull by the horns, and clearly she’s the opposite. Soon, I’m going ballistic, pulling branches off trees because she’s so slow.  I’m compensating for her wishy-washy approach of picking up one leaf, inspecting it and putting back down again.  I need results fast – I need a miracle – and I need it in two sessions. I can’t watch her delicately prune another tree I want to be ripped out. My intolerance is fast approaching boiling point.

I look for the nearest watering can and start fantasising about bludgeoning her to death with it. Then I remember the children are waiting patiently by the door to learn how to nurture a plant into life. I feel shame at my monstrous thoughts. I consider calling my sponsor but realise I’m too far gone – nobody can help me now. My OCD has gone to new levels – it's come in through the back door and taken me by surprise. I want this garden clean and tidy. And now. I can’t stand the mess!

But it’s torturous waiting for her to do anything. I obliterate a bush with long shears. She’s telling me to stop, saying I don’t know the difference between a weed and an expensive shrub. “I want the place cleared!” I am screaming inside.  My dad calls me offering a chainsaw, but I don’t dare trust myself with such a lethal item. I want to pull the secateurs out of her hand and axe the shrub down.

I’ve seen the red mist. Why has the gardener triggered me? It's nothing deep and mysterious – it’s this woman. It's all her.  Or is it me? Wow, soon it is cathartic. She looks alarmed as I’ve cleared the whole back of the garden and put it in bin bags in 10 minutes while she’s raking a patch of the flowerbed. I feel like the Hulk.

We need tools because I’ve broken an old spade so she offers to come to a hardware store on High St Ken with me. “At no cost.” That’s nice of her, I think. She says she “loooves shopping” and “shall we have a sesh?”. I end up buying a cheap spade, fork and grass rake and a bobble white bath mat for £20. What a bargain. Half term is going well. What with the fact the kids' favourite pastime is going to Poundland – and I buy them three things and they tell me I am the best mum in the world – I’m saving a fortune. But, by the time we get home, the arms, legs and head of the dolls have fallen off and my kids are crying. I don’t bother to complain and just chuck it away. What do you expect for one pound?

We return home to plant some flowers with Lola and Liberty. I’ve already hacked the whole left-hand side of the garden with shears in five minutes and smashed down the nettles and brambles with the lawnmower by the time she has put her waterproof overalls back on. My mum friend calls me: “It sounds like she is more a personal trainer or professional motivator than a gardener.” She’s right.  I’ve had had a full-body workout and cleared my garden for £20 quid. It’s a bargain. I’m trying to look at things positively; being in the garden has changed me. My anger has gone and I feel at peace. Have years of grief and anger dissipated in just one “sesh”? Have I shifted years of rage?

By the time she waltzes back into the flat, covered in mud, having spent 1.5 hours raking a small flower bed at £20 per hour – I am on the phone to Fantastic Services, booking two men to come and clear the garden because it still looks like a dump. It’s a no-brainer. It might cost £50 for one hour – but the job is done. Suddenly I feel clearer, like I’m getting somewhere, when I hear some maniacal barking. “Mummy look!” says Lola. I see Muggles shaking the geranium in his mouth like a rag doll and he is digging up the flowerbed with his back paws at the same time.

“Have you thought of training your dog?” says the gardener. “I expect there are plenty of YouTube training videos on how to stop your dog from digging up flower beds.” It’s the final straw. At least help is on the way – I just want the garden gutted. Then I will think again. Something's got to give. Maybe I will fence off a section of the garden for the kids. And let Muggles destroy the other half?