So how does your garden grow? – The Guardian

A peacock butterfly and a small tortoiseshell butterfly warm themselves on a buddleia plant. Well, we think it is... Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Can you name a shrub? No Googling, no consulting, Ill give you three seconds, three two one GO!

Ah no, sorry. Thats a tree. Good try though.

Who said buddleia? Well done to you.

Oleander? Five points.

OK, Ill grudgingly accept rose. You could have a shrub rose. I think.

Viburnum, you say? Is that not a percussion instrument? Wait, hang on, let me just look at the no, youre right, you can have viburnum.

If youre currently in a room with four other people, ask if anyone can name a shrub. If more than two of them can, youre in an unusual room. According to a survey by the Royal Horticultural Society, held to mark the opening of the 2017 Chelsea Flower Show, 50% of British adults cannot name a single shrub.

You might think: well, that could just be down to the confusing nomenclature. What is a shrub, what is a bush, what is a tree? Its not that people dont know these plants, they just got stuck on category definitions when put on the spot.

But that doesnt explain it, because 40% couldnt name a household plant either. You cant embarrass yourself on the scientific classification of household plant; thats just any plant you find in a house. Peace lily, rubber plant, cactus, African violet, venus flytrap, those Christmas ones, you know, the red ones. Theyre all house plants. But four out of 10 Brits cant name one.

Also gloomily reported was that a fifth of respondents do not grow anything themselves, indoors or outdoors, of any kind. But surely thats a happy twist in the tale: so four-fifths do! 80% of people are trying to grow something! The extrapolation is that literally millions of us, despite not being able to name any plants, are planting them anyway.

And thats the main thing. I think its enormously important to plant things. Theres an incomparable peace and comfort in watching the cycles of plant life, which is deeply therapeutic if youre actually taking part.

You may say: duh, everybody knows that, its a cliche and doesnt bear mentioning. But Im not so sure. It was also reported, in the roar of garden-themed publicity accompanying this most famous of flower shows, that artificial grass is surging in popularity and Britain is awash with illegal orange petunias.

Did you know orange petunias were illegal? I didnt. Apparently, theyre genetically modified to the extent that we dont know what harm they may do to insect life. Were not supposed to buy them or cultivate them and should contact Defra if we see them on sale.

In the future, they may prove harmless. People may delight in whatever the genetic modification cleverly does: survive winter, grow straighter or withstand drought. But the problem there, like the problem with artificial grass, is that its all about the glory of man. And gardening should be the precise opposite.

The soothing power of flowers and grass lies in the way they come and go and come again; theyre a mortal part of an immortal whole. And thats what you feel like yourself, as you watch their cycles and feel your place within them. The key to natures therapy is feeling like a tiny part of it, not a master over it. Theres amazing pride in seeing a bee land on a flower you planted but thats not your act of creation, its your act of joining in.

This simply doesnt apply if its astroturf. Astroturf is a great idea I believe its better for hockey but if you want to bask in the genius of human invention you might just as well stare at an iPhone. Or the fridge.

Im not a luddite. Science, computers, medicine, theyre all great. But nature is context. That which we cant control. Its constant mortality and immortality is an answer to the terror of finite existence. It reassures the soul.

Thats why I sympathise with 79-year-old Guy and Josie Simmins, whose wheelie bin row has been reported in the national press.

The Simminses must be surprised by the level of interest. In the normal run of things, bins are like farts: were quite interested in our own, irritated by those of our immediate neighbours and simply dont think about ones that happen several counties away.

But people have enjoyed sniggering at the stance of Mr and Mrs Simmins, who, along with other residents of their terraced street in Bath, say the front gardens are too pretty to stand the invasion of council-enforced wheelie bins.

Ho ho, snorts the Twitter generation. Rich mans problems! Terrorism Brexit Syria! #checkyourprivilege hashtag hashtag! (Hashtag is the modern equivalent of rhubarb: a meaningless noise to make when pretending to be a coherent crowd.)

But theyre missing the point. This is a couple, nigh on 80 years old, no doubt as terrified and miserable about the state of everything as the rest of us, who find solace in tending the natural environment around them and want (indeed need) to keep doing so.

I dont know the Simminses but, speaking for myself, the hours I spent obsessively watering plants last week were not about shrinking my attention on to something smaller than the immediate fears and tragedies around us, but trying to invest it in something bigger.

Maybe the Simminses are protecting their connection with the eternal. I might be setting too much store by symbolism, but God knows what happens to the psyche if you spend all day staring at a giant dustbin.

These arent big gardens were talking about. Theyre just little patches of green, lining an ordinary street. No astroturf, no orange petunias, just an ordinary selection of calming, leafy, natural shrubs. I was grateful for mere photographs of them in last weeks horrible newspapers although, of course, I couldnt name any.

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So how does your garden grow? - The Guardian