We recently visited some friends for an amazing supper. And were touched to be told, when we admired their sitting room, that they had removed their television so that it would look better.
It’s the kind of thing I’d actually do myself for visitors, but I don’t usually have the bottle to say so. I’m not sure why. I suspect I hope to give the impression that our house always looks so clean, tidy and, hopefully, attractive. Which, of course, is a great big lie. We actually only have visitors in order to motivate ourselves to get the vacuum cleaner out. I suppose too, we like to appear casual and spontaneous. As if….
The same kind of pretence applies when we open the garden, of course. We don’t leave a hose lying around – they’re not particularly pretty.
We clean the water in the pools – in the first pool by raking off the algae, which handily brings out some of the duckweed along with it.
After! (sometimes)
How did we get it this clean??!
With the other pool – the Reflecting Pool – the task is to remove the dead flies, pollen and leaves which clutter the otherwise beautiful surface.
The water should look more like this. The hedges should also be cut, and we dedicate major resources to that task. The face of the yew hedge here is another story, which if you’re into schadenfreude you can read about here.
The same task applies to the birdbath, which must also be topped up. And all of them may need blacking up. That means mixing up some black food dye and adding it to the water. You get black fingers but the process is delightful, watching the darker colour spread across the water, adding great allure for those of us who hate greeny grey pond water. A common sight in gardens, sadly.
The blackbird obviously likes it being black.
And we may do a little judicious weeding …(cleavers)
We may even mow.
We may clear up any tools or wheelbarrows which are cluttering the place. Though I do seem to remember a certain well known garden writer saying she would leave some such things as they communicated something about the garden work. That it’s not done by fairies in the dark of night, I suppose.
Of course, as we know, to our shame, the extent of the tidying and creating a good display depends a little on the status of the anticipated visitor. Old friends, frequently encountered, may get a perfunctory dust indoors and outside perhaps nothing much extra at all. Unless, – and here is an added complication, they are coming for a special occasion. Their birthday perhaps. Or for a special sweated over supper by way of return for similar at their hands.
Don’t know what we’d do if the queen was coming. But we don’t seem to need to worry about that.
Charles just visible to the keen eyed, (in blue, gesticulating) giving an introductory talk to a group of visitors
Paying visitors get all most of the garden tweaks. And we desperately hope it won’t rain, but that seems to be still out of our control.
Having paying visitors has a bonus effect, which is that when they are not coming the garden is suddenly ours again, and that is a joy. There are even some parts of the garden where we grow things predominantly for ourselves – we don’t open in early spring, for example, so we have special times visiting spring plants which are just for us. (and friends)
Erythroniums just for us.
Then there is a sudden question when we close the garden in October about what motivates us then to weed or tidy. It’s certainly not the Telegraph’s monthly injunction: ‘Plant and TIDY‘ !
I know that those of us who don’t open their gardens to the public must regard it all as a terrible demand of time and effort. But when the garden is really shining it does seem right that we should share it. Even if it does mean doing a little sprucing up at times.
And do remember, you must always go and have a pee when you visit people – they will have cleaned the bathroom specially.
My husband is not grateful for that unmowed circle photo, because now I want to do that. Such a beautiful detail!
He’ll..err.. come round!
I too use guests to motivate me to house clean. Which I hate. Usually the husband does not pay much attention to the garden. So the one time he decides to show it off is the one time the shade garden path hadn’t got trimmed back and he decides to tow a very large sized non-gardening couple about. And it had just rained. Their expressions gave me the giggles.
I’m sure they loved it! Nothing like getting soaked while being dragged round someone’s garden.
Company in half an hour. You forced me to tackle the bathroom. On a sweeter note, your erythronium are exquisite. That put me in a much happier mood.
Glad to hear it. Hope your guests used the bathroom!
I had to laugh at your idea that using the bathroom when you are visiting is actually a courtesy, since who wants to know they cleaned the bathroom for nothing?! In fact, when I recently visited my daughter’s mother in law, right before I left, I realized I had forgotten to pee and made a point of doing so before I left, haha.
Good thinking there.
As usual, so useful Anne. Off to skim the pond. For me, myself and I. – MW
Most important person in your garden.. Have you tried putting a sprinkler on it first? Drives the bits to the edges.
It’s all so lovely. But I have to admit I don’t love the concept of “blacking the water”. I never heard of it before. And I don’t see what’s so awful about a little pond scum, or a few leaves here and there. And I’ve repeatedly seen online the caution about not putting red dye in hummingbird feeders because it can be harmful to the birds. I don’t imagine black dye would be any more innocuous should a creature be in search of a water source Seems the guests need to reacquaint themselves with Nature.
I think the idea and the original dye (ours is a food dye, so hoping you don’t eat cakes with it in the icing!) comes from American fishing lakes, to protect the fish from predatory birds.
You are in tune with the cautions of the times, and I confess it saddens me.
Let me see, what other housekeeping do we do? Well we usually try and hide the cars. And hack back foliage that is collapsed onto the paths. I might clear the table in front of the potting shed which is a place of transition . Might even clean some bird poo off the seats. All this clearing up keeps it nicer for us though so that when we are sitting having that drink in the garden we are not so plagued by seeing things that need doing. Or do we then turn our attention to the bigger picture and see where we need to make changes. We really ought to open in the Spring!
I sometimes wonder if you’d be happy to open it all year!
Not all year but a couple of spring days would take in some very special moments.
Hmm.
Thanks Anne for a most appropriate rant about visitors. Later this afternoon I will be at my sister’s private garden which is open to the bloggers convention in Madison Wisconsin. She has been obsessing, so this bit of humor was just the right thing. Her reply: I just realized that the queen is not coming.
Delighted to hear that – apart from hearing that the queen is not visiting her either…
Always good for a laugh, you are! Only having a small garden myself, I still struggle to keep it looking tidy, though hardly anyone other than my husband or a delivery person ever sees it. I often wonder why I do it, but the answer is invariably “for myself,” and I’m content with that, though trying to maintain Edwardian standards with a full time job and no team of helpers invariably leads to disappointment.
I think time will change our expectations and maybe already has. The neat and tidy garden is now terribly dated in the UK. The big question (a rant maybe?) is how to make rather wild look glorious.
The best way to make wild look glorious is to only go outside at dawn and dusk, when the light is at it’s best! Almost everything looks great at those times. But I much prefer the wild look to the formal, anyway, so maybe I’m biased.
I guess on that basis we could take our glasses off before we go outside?
Interesting this wild/formal. I wonder what people have in mind in regard to either? I ended up talking on here about ‘over gardened’ as a way of trying to get to grips with the differences..
Wild vs formal: I find that if there are paths through a wild area, at the least, it looks intentional. Clean (or low growing) edges also helps.
I do like a little bit of hedging with my wild…..
There is something beautiful in the tension between clipped and ‘wild’ , but I confess I don’t know why it pleases me so much.
I agree! Me too.
In addition to clipped hedges, positioning an inviting place to sit (whether chairs, a bench, a flat stone at proper height – free of bird poop) also takes the “threat” out of being in truly wild places. That situation, too, offers a pleasing tension in a garden. And tidying the view from those seats becomes added to the prep work for showing one’s garden.
True. Though Charles tells me we can seat 60 people in various different places, so can’t truly guarantee they and their views will be totally pristine. You may well do better!