DUSTBINMEN the Island over will be cursing garden centres this week as their carts had to contend with the extra seasonal loads of plastic pots and trays discarded after a weekend of frenetic gardening.

We may still be in the grip of a recession but come the first really hot weekend of the summer and all gardeners can think of is bedding plants, shrubs and herbaceous borders – and yours truly was one of them. Tomorrow, inspired by the gardens on show at this week’s Chelsea Flower Show, I’ll be back for more.

What is it about warm weather that turbo-charges the energy levels of the green fingerers fraternity and causes normally sedate souls to take no heed of Noel Coward’s melodic warning that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun, let alone indulge in frenetic gardening activities? Rather than relaxing in the shade with a cooling drink, come the hottest part of the day, we avid gardeners can be found digging with the fury of a terrier or hacking back the winter’s neglected growth.

As I planted a row of foxgloves, I pondered why flowers and gardens mean so much to us?
The late and greatly missed JEP columnist, Betty Brooke, was fond of quoting Chinese proverbs in her musings on life. I wonder if, when researching her sources of eastern sayings, she came across this one: ‘When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.’

As someone who simply has to have vases of flowers in every room, I was dismayed last week by two stories in the national media. The first concerned flowers sold in supermarkets which lack natural perfume because of intensive growing processes and techniques to lengthen shelf live. Some retailing bright spark has come up with a rather ludicrous solution; so that shoppers know what the flowers should smell like each bunch comes with a scratch and sniff card!

A day or so later, as my suspended belief was slowly drifting back to earth Sainsbury’s made the news with a solution to overcome the obstacle of lilies becoming the UK’s biggest selling household flowers and, thereby, swelling the chain’s huge bank balance ever more.
Lilies, as the inscrutable Chinese proverb writer fully understood, are worth spending your last penny on, yet in reality cost far more. Not only are they beautiful to behold they emit the most intoxicating perfume. However, the brown pollen has a tendency to stain everything it comes in contact with, while also causing problems for sufferers of hay fever and allergies.

When God got round to creating lilies in his seven-day schedule of building the earth, he must have been running short of time. Faced with the dilemma of making Norway’s rugged fjords as crinkly as possible in the hours remaining – or ensuring that the pollen of lilies would not stain 21st century carpets and furnishing – the Almighty took the rock sculpting option.

Fortunately, Sainsbury’s have managed to overcome God’s lack of attention to detail by employing a plant technologist to produce the first pollen-free lily. Surely someone as specialist as a plant technologist would have better things to do.

The breaking of this daft story came at the same time as a nationwide awareness and fund raising campaign by the Red Cross to help, among those in dire need worldwide, the starving people of Darfur. The technologist’s time would be better spent coming up with drought-resistant crops rather than stain-free flowers which no doubt will retail at a price beyond the dreams and wages of the impoverished Sudanese people.

Blooms of a very different kind sprung forth with gusto last week as the Boulivot heights straddling the St Saviour and Grouville borderlands took on a Provençal appearance. Mustard seeds that have lain dormant from summers past have germinated in the Mediterranean drought conditions to overwhelm field upon field of Jersey Royals yearning for rain.

Where the landscape should be lush and green with potato foliage, it is carpeted with golden yellow flowers. A truly stunning sight to behold; but yet another worry for farmers struggling to harvest their crop in the worst potato growing conditions experienced in the Island for more than 50 years.

This carpet of gold forms a vivid counterpoint to the surrounding hedgerows, heavily laden with white May blossom like snow on winter’s boughs.

The cold winter and late spring may have been nature’s way of rudely awakening us all to the fact that we live in the northern hemisphere and all that entails weather wise, but Mother Nature is not entirely cruel. Having reminded us that winters are supposed to be cold with sub-zero temperatures she kept a few treats up her sleeve.

First came the Blackthorn blossom, quickly followed by an abundance of plum and cherry trees in full bloom and the sweetest smelling of all, apple. But the best blossom of all bides its time until summer has arrived.

There is an old English proverb that always rings true: ‘Ne’er cast a clout till May be out.’ This saying serves a warning that warm winter clothing and coats -–a clout being a cloak or outer layer of apparel – should not be discarded until the end of May.

However, true interpretation is less time specific as it refers to the blossom of the Hawthorn tree colloquially known as May blossom. The hawthorn’s familiar place in the landscape of the British Isles is largely due to the Parliamentary Enclosure Act in England where, between 1750 and 1850, as many as 200,000 miles of hawthorn hedge were planted. It is the most certain portend of summer and the sign to pack away the winter woollies till the sun again tips southwards.

It doesn’t require an old sage – Chinese or whoever – to remind us that the sight and smell of flowers and blossom lift the spirit and bring good cheer.
If there was ever a good time to stop and smell the flowers and blossom it is now.