Cultivating hardness of heart

Being 'nice' doesn't cut it when it comes to true gardening excellence. Difficult though it may be, a touch of ruthlessness is often exactly what's required

- By Ursula Buchan

WHENEVER I find myself among fellow gardeners, sooner or later someone will announce, as if it's an incontrovertible fact that no one can gainsay, that “passionate gardeners are such nice people”. Since I am, by this definition, a nice person, I swallow the impulse to mutter “up to a point, Lord Copper”. Gardeners certainly dodge some of the worst traits of common humanity: they usually have an aesthetic sense so they are rarely, if ever, narcissists; they are mostly extremely generous, both with plants and hard-won knowledge; they rarely commit serious crimes, since incarceration would take them away from their beloved garden; and, for the same reason, they like to stay in one place so they tend to be calm, unhurried and easy to be around.