Garden Fashion
Gardening has its own dress code. There are many glamorous gardeners but I’m not one of them. I scrub up fairly well for a night out but my plants don’t care about dresses and mascara runs in rain and sweat.
My gardening style is more decades old leggings with mysterious green stains. A three sizes too big hoodie that permanently smells faintly of compost. And Crocs. Always Crocs in summer, the kind which squeak hilariously when wet. Wellies in other seasons, of course, with additional welly liner socks in winter, because I would like my toes to remain attached in frost.
And hair resembling a huge bird’s nest. With a few twigs and foliage for theatrical effect. Maybe a brown smudge about the nose or forehead, in lieu of make-up?
The other day I was walking Cooper along the beach when I stopped in my tracks. There were people. Not dog walkers. Proper people. Beaching. I hadn’t anticipated this. I wasn’t dressed for peopleing.
It occurred to me that somewhere between weeding, moving compost and harvesting rhubarb, I had crossed an invisible line. These weren’t really clothes any more. They were gardening clothes. An entirely different category of garment whose purpose is to acquire soil rather than avoid it.
The strange thing is that I no longer mind. The garden has quietly rearranged my priorities. I’m much more interested in whether I’ve remembered to water the tomatoes than whether my gardening hoodie is freshly washed, when I nip out to walk my dog.
