Gender and Gardening - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 140

Richard left, Anne very capably continued the heavy tasks Richard was no longer
available to carry out. Indeed as I show later, her aspirations to build and construct
became even more ambitious when her husband left.
John continually stressed his dislike of gardening, which he defined as being about
plants and planting, 'I like a nice garden. I like to look at one, but I 'ate gardening
and she likes a tidy one.' His way of circumventing any involvement with plants
was to filter out the masculine aspects of creating a garden - the feminine aspects
of plants and planting were quite clearly delegated to Stephanie. Interestingly, when
he spoke about his contribution to the garden, he continually referred to it as being
about preparing the space for Stephanie:
John : I will dig a garden, plant turf, do owt she wants…I'll do the basics, build them, any
walls, owt she wants that way, but other than that I don't do owt.
Lisa T : What was it like when you first arrived?
John : Bomb site (laughs). New house.
Stephanie : But it was open plan with next door …we built a wall at the front and up in
the middle.
Lisa T : (to both) And did you do that work?
John : That was me. And I framed it up, and put her soil in and laid her grass. Laid her
some flags 'round.
As John later said about a future garden they envisaged they would inherit with a
new bigger house, 'It'd be just basically what she wants. I'd build it and she plants
it.' By continually stressing that his role is to prepare a space for her decoration,
John manages to place a discursive, as well as a material distance, between himself
and feminine gardening tasks. He lays the structure and then completely withdraws
his contribution so that she can make the decorative decisions of which he wants
no part. The language of doing becomes increasingly gendered in the following
exchange; John's tasks are 'heavy' and associated with DIY and they prepare the
way for Stephanie to trim and titivate:
John : I'm into DIY, I like to say “well I've done that garden an' our lass 'as finished it.”
She's dressed it, which is basically it.
Stephanie : That's what I do in t' house. He does all t' like heavy work…makes the
furniture.
John : She does the trimmings.
Stephanie : And I do all t' trimmings. Even at Christmas I do all t' trimmings.
John : I like to look at it. I like to think, “that's nice. Looks good.”