Gardening for Beginners

WHAT ever is the opposite of greenfingers, I have. I only have to walk past a houseplant for it to shrivel up and die in front of my eyes.
It's not a family thing. My brothers and sisters are all keen and expert gardeners. But I can get a cutting, water it with tears, dip it in rooting powder, keep it in a polythene bag in the airing cupboard, pray over it, cast magic spells, and wait for it to start shooting. And wait. And wait. And wait.
My mother on the other hand can find a dry twig in the road, stick it in her garden and the next day, honestly, it will be six foot high and covered in flowers.
As my birthday comes round and various people ask me if there is anything that I want, I sometimes ask for a plant of some kind. They look at me as if they may as well stick the tenner straight into the recycling bin and so cut out the middle man.
My eldest sister dishes out plants that she has propagated. They come complete with Latin name tag and strict instructions on how to care for them. Middle sister later gets the third degree. "Where's that Rosodendrum Daffodilus I gave you? I hope you put the the Violetus Primulatum in a nice shady spot. Did you remember to feed the Lilacum Carnatius with eye of toad and ear of bat? You'll have to move that Fuchsian Ragwort or it'll get club foot and yellow fever."
She comes round to my house to check up on the 150 plants she gave me at her last visit and it's: "Oh my god, the Zinnia Zebratum is still alive! IT'S STILL ALIVE! IT'S STILL ALIVE!"
I must admit, though, I do tend towards the neglectful side when it comes to gardening. If I pay out good money for a plant I expect it to be self-sufficient, sleeping in its own bed, finding its own food and not coming to me for handouts like some 25-year-old son unable to cut the apron strings.
My mother once prodded the dried up remains of various pot plants in my house, gave me that look that mothers have perfected over years of dealing with recalcitrant children and said witheringly, "You'll find a little water is a wonderful thing."
It doesn't help that gardening seems to be conducted in some arcane language that I have never managed to master.
Friends and family ask me things like, "Did you remember to prep the soil?" I might have. I might not have. What's it to you?

"Do you double dig?" Look, I have trouble getting my ass in gear to single dig.

"Some cultivars would look good over there." No doubt. So would some Bolivars, Magyars and Tartars, as long as they knew about gardening.
But I have a week's holiday coming up so I've been getting out the gardening books, this time determined to rival the creations at the Chelsea Flower Show. I will love my plants, talk to them, feed them on champagne and caviar and tuck them into their beds at night in the hope that they will repay me by sticking around for a few years.

It's time to turn over a new leaf.