Gender and Gardening - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 143

of gardening as a means through which masculinity can, contrary to those who
define it as somehow feminised, be performed. As a consequence of Joyce's lack of
involvement, however, James is responsible for all garden activities, the decorative
as well as the structural. I come to how James dealt discursively with the decorative
aspects of his gardening later.
James's view that women are too frail to garden has its contradictions. For
one thing, Joyce clearly could garden. James told me that while he was in hospital
having his heart by-pass operation, Joyce 'looked after the garden'. Also gardening
presenter Charlie Dimmock had not escaped James's notice - but not as the national
press at the time had constructed her - as a sex symbol. James was far more taken by
her absolutely extra-ordinary physical ability:
James : But I mean, to me I mean, I've never seen a woman work like that girl works. She
can show fellas up nearly. She's as strong as an ox. She's tremendous strength. …(talking
about Ground Force ) They were fetching breeze blocks or concrete blocks and they were
carrying one to start with, then they carried two and Alan Titchmarsh was …and she came
through with three and Titchmarsh didn't you know…Oh I think she's as good as a fella
anytime in the garden that lady. I mean gardening's physical and she could match any man.
Talking of Charlie led him directly on to a memory James had of a similarly
physically able woman who made quite an impression on him, a woman he can still
recall almost forty years later:
James : I've only ever seen a lady perform like her when I was at Toothill. We bordered on
a potting shed … and the middle-aged farmer's wife there, youngish woman, about thirty-
odd, there when it came to hitching the hay and things on to the top of the step she could
match a fella anytime. But you don't find that generally with ladies, I mean they usually
aren't built like that, I mean they aren't supposed to be built like that.
Making these women extraordinary serves an important purpose for James,
particularly in relation to his bid to keep gardening a masculine preserve. For
James, these robust gardeners can only be explained away as aberrant women who
outstep the physical remit of femininity. To see them as representative as opposed to
exceptional would be to acknowledge that women too have the capacity to perform
'masculine' work. They come too close to shattering the fragility of his belief that
only men can cope with the physical challenge that gardening presents.
Keith told me that he has undertaken all the structural work in his garden and
that heavy work, such as moving plants, is his responsibility. The statue they have in
the garden was chosen by his wife Joy, who works part-time as a bank clerk, at the
local garden centre. Joy chose the site for the statue and Keith was called in to carry
it to where Joy wanted it. Nonetheless, while Joy made the decision to purchase their
decorative sculpture, she has a limited input into the decorative decisions within the
garden. It is Keith who researches plants and designs the planting scheme, so like
James, Keith is responsible for the decorative aspects of his garden.
In relation to James and Keith's interview transcripts, however, one could be
forgiven for thinking that these men had no relationship with decoration. Yet the gardens
these men produced were adorned with plants which clearly served an ornamental