The Acer Maple Tree Blether
Strange and unusual happenings of a gardening kind........
Early evening, October, a small town in the Scottish Highlands, a red estate car pulls into the community car park, three people get out, one man, two women, not young, not old, and remove a large terracotta pot containing a six foot Acer Maple tree from the Sensory Garden that fills the space between the Public library and the School, then they climb into a large white minibus and depart into the gathering dusk.
Four hours later the minibus returns.
Three people disembark. No sign of the Acer Maple Tree. This time they are carrying plates heaped with a mixture of mouth-watering foods – ham, cheese, pasta, quiche, salad, salmon, chicken, that sort of thing. They clamber into the red estate car and disappear quietly into the night, plates balanced precariously on their knees.
Now what’s all this about, you might wonder? Could be the beginning of a thriller novel perhaps, and one worthy of an Ian Fleming, an Agatha Christie or even an Ian Rankin? If so, then obviously I’m in the wrong profession. Obviously, obviously. I should have been a thriller writer perhaps? ‘The Acer Maple Tree Murders’, ‘The Terracotta Pot Plot’, something like that!
But anyway it so happens that I was one of the characters in this scenario and things are not always what they seem. Stealing Acer Maple Trees? Me? Never! It was a gift, you see, a retirement gift for one of the teachers at the local School - and us, we’d been invited to the party. A six foot Acer Maple Tree won’t fit into your average car, you know, not if you’re carrying passengers as well, so we’d borrowed the school minibus to transport it across town. A very good retirement party it was too, by the way, and one that took place in the retiree’s garage because there were simply too many folk to fit into the house (what a brilliant idea – a garage party). And the plates of food? Party food, you know, surplus to requirements – ‘waste not, want not’ - that’s all.
I wondered afterwards if anyone had spotted us with the Acer Maple Tree or the plates of food? They might have done, mightn’t they? What did they think was going on? The mind boggles.
On this particular note – things not always being what they seem – there’s a truly splendid vegetable garden in a town not far from here, just off the high street in fact, and between rows of onions and cabbages, standing proud, is a full-length mirror, six foot at least, supported by a wooden frame and polished to perfection. So - you might wonder - what’s all this about then? I wondered anyway. A gardener with style perhaps, a gardener who takes a pride in his appearance whilst engaged in a plethora of horticultural activities, the latest gardening accessories dangling from his belt and a topiary haircut worthy of Kew Gardens to boot? ‘Personal Grooming’ in the veg plot.
Only he was no fashion ‘diva’, this guy, no, no, most certainly not, in fact quite the opposite: muddy boots, saggy denims, dirty fingernails and stubble sprouting like newly harvested corn stalks from his weather-beaten face
Curiosity got the better of me in the end and so I had to ask. I leant over the fence and summoned him with one of my best lop-sided grins.
“What’s with the mirror then?”
“Cats,” he replied sagely.
“Ah-ha,” I said, none the wiser. “Ah-ha.....cats, is it?”
“Territorial, you know,” he continued, adopting the stance of an ‘expert gardener’ imparting horticultural wisdom to a bemused-looking man with a lop-sided grin. “Tom Cats........catch themselves in the mirror, spot another Tom Cat - or so they think - don’t come back.”
“Ah-ha,” I said, gathering the general gist of this unusual idea. “Ah-ha.”
“Tom Cats,” he repeated, tapping the side of his nose with soil encrusted fingers. “Territorial.”
With that he swivelled on his heels and returned to more pressing matters of a horticultural kind, though not before he’d given himself a quick ‘once over’ in the mirror to check that everything was in order in the personal grooming department.
So there you are, you see, things are not always what they seem.
Now does it work, this Tom Cat/Mirror thing? Possibly, possibly. Could be worth a try if you have a cat problem, interesting idea, and an excellent nugget of gardening wisdom to impart to others whenever cats and gardening are mentioned under the same breath. Not such a good idea for the local bird population though, could be dangerous, better to have a dirty mirror rather than a clean one, don’t you think, otherwise they might fly into it? So there you are.
(Copyright 2004 Patrick Vickery)
(Dedicated to the late Mike Pavitt – known to many as 'Sox' – from 'The Pippins' in Sussex. A gardener, a photographer and a man with a generous sense of humour. Much missed by those who knew him.)
History of the Garden Blether