Once I let on I was a gardener I found all sorts of people trying to get me to do their garden for them. I have to say I wasn't all that keen once I found what state their gardens had been left in. However, needs must, and I look on it as more of a nanny role for rich parents who are too wealthy to look after their own children. Because surely, if you have a garden it's because you like gardens? Otherwise you wouldn't have one if you didn't like gardening. So goes my logic.
In this job, I found out how the other half live. The other half, being the wealthy baby boomers who have just retired so they no longer have to garden, but still want a garden. They are not so old and decrepit that they physically can't, they just don't want to be bothered anymore. However there were a handful of stalwarts that still gardened but only a very few at Waitakere Gardens, and it was a select group. They gardened every Wednesday morning without fail and always, always had a cup of tea and perhaps scone or muffin afterwards in the cafe, and it was the highlight of their week.
Then they would reminisce about the 'good old days' before the nostalgia got too acute, and patronised me by saying I was so young, that they thought I had just got out of high school. One (it was one of the Heathers) wondered why my gardening uniform was so dirty, didn't my employers wash them for me? Another was a retired school teacher who couldn't stop teaching and was trying to teach me how to garden. The busybody of the group didn't think I even qualified as a gardener and she tried to take over the whole village, planting in areas where she wasn't allowed. The others gave her a wide berth, and sometimes we gardened in silence when she was around. One lady always complained about the garden costing the village so much money but my boss cleverly gave her the all important job of picking flowers to sell in the village, and sent her off out of earshot.
I would get everything ready, tools, wheelbarrows, kneelers, and head over to the designated area while my boss, who was meant to be overseeing them all so they didn't fall over and break their ankles, left me doing all the heavy lifting while he chatted on his phone. My boss was a perfectionist at OCD level and had anxiety because in the back of his mind the CEO of Met Life Care could come over any minute and inspect the gardens and if there was a weed anywhere on the grounds he would get the blame.
I didn't think that would ever happen and never saw him at any rate, but that did not make my boss an easy chap to work for. The other thing he liked to talk about was his dream of retiring and travelling the world, and I have to say it was a nice dream (for him) but I had my job to concentrate on and I wasn't THAT old.
The only relief I got from his nagging was when I mowed the lawns and could put on earmuffs and go up and down, up and down the berms. It a bit of mindless work but the ladies at the retirement were horrified that my boss was putting us girls to work mowing lawns while he wasn't doing anything but chatting on his phone. Hey it was important organising all the gardening schedules! Of course I was kept in the dark about this as usual and was only ever told what I was meant to do that day. But often the instructions were too complicated and I forgot because my boss liked to talk talk talk and talk some more that I could never remember his instructions after he started waxing lyrical about the Taranaki Garden Festival. He always promised he would take us, but the more seasoned workers said he just talks about it and never does it, and he'd been talking about it for years. I could only get on his good side by salivating over a meat pie. We had meat pies in common.
The good thing about my garden nanny job I remember was the old folk who told me I was doing a good job. Like I would be out working at random and they'd be appreciative. But there were other times when I got abused and sworn at and I didn't like that so much. However the plants never complained and I miss them sometimes.
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