Class, Taste and Gardening - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 114

be positioned as inferior or inadequate. The garden is the interface between home
and the street and as such it holds a particular significance; it can act as a marker
of respectability to others who might miss out on seeing that the inside of the home
is tidy and by extension - clean. It therefore becomes the site by which they are
able to tell others in their local community that they are that part of the working-
class who know how to manage the up-keep of the home. The following exchange
shows an awareness that there are particular kinds of 'scruffy' garden that should be
avoided and that particular times of year prompt increased vigilance for John and
Stephanie:
John : I don't like right long grass. To me it looks scruffy. If my lawn were long grass, I'd
cut it, just to cut it down.
Stephanie : If I've left it I've been ashamed. I'd think oh next door's gonna think, “get
out and do it.”
Lisa : Are you conscious that people look?
Stephanie : Oh definitely! An' we 'ave, in May when we 'ave t'elections, everybody walks
up and down for elections, don't they John?
John : Aye and they look in t'garden.
Stephanie : An' they stop an' look in ours, don't they? An' they say “Oh that's nice, I like
that.” To me, if you bother with your garden it shows, really…
John : It shows on yer 'ouse.
Stephanie : It shows yer house is, you bother with your house as well. If you've got a
scruffy garden, if I look in what I call a scruffy garden, someone who can't be bothered,
they show that they can't .. that their house is gonna be t'same. It's like Keeping up
Appearances on tv. You look at their garden and you know t'ouse is gonna be t'same 'cos
they just can't be bothered.
These gardens are regulated to ensure that those who judge from the outside cannot
regard those inside as ones who do not know how to 'care' for the inside. Keith
made it clear that his act of giving plants away was predicated upon knowing that
the people he gave plants to would be responsible enough to care for them. In doing
so he expresses doubts about other members of his class who might turn out to not
care. On offering to put a plant in the garden for a neighbour,
Keith : I says “well do you want some of these?” he says “alright” he says, “well yeah,
just stick 'em in and I'll look after them.” And that's important, if they're gonna look after
them that's fair enough.
For the middle-class respondents gardening is regarded quite differently. There
was a 'given' confidence about stating the value of gardens as well as an assumption
that I would recognise the various types of value that were ascribed. For Rosemary
gardening first and foremost is about 'having a love of plants.' There was also a