A walnut tree in a pot
On renting and roots, by Jenny McCallum
Jenny McCallum is sharing with us today about gardening in rental properties. Renting was on the news on the radio, again, here in the UK yesterday, as it often is these days. There’s now an average of 25 tenants requesting to view any rental property in Britain and the average advertised rent for a new let outside of London has risen to a record £1,278 per month. One person told how he was advised to secure a property by offering a year’s rent upfront, which he did by borrowing the amount from a friend.
It’s bloody tough out there. I’ve heard from friends the impossibility of finding somewhere affordable, taking months to secure a property (a home!) amidst all the competition for places, and having a garden, particularly in the city, is not in reach for many. What does it mean to garden when it’s so difficult to set down roots when we want to?
On renting and roots, by Jenny McCallum
I have a little walnut tree in a blue glazed pot. It has a wonderfully gnarled trunk for its five years of age and 60 centimetres of height in full leaf. Every year it grows a bit but starts to suffer by the end of summer, well before natural autumn leaf drop, and I wonder if I’m guilty of plant torture.
This little tree means much more to me than a sapling bought in a plastic pot. To my complete delight I discovered it growing in a trough of daffodils by the door of our last house, along with two hazel. I was able to identify them immediately by the shells still hidden in the compost, had a little chuckle about the forgetfulness of squirrels, and potted them up. Thinking back to the previous summer, I could also identify its probable parent – a resplendent old walnut I met behind the high garden walls of one of the big old houses in that neighbourhood. It was one of those beautiful but alienating summer afternoons where you get to enjoy the glorious private gardens around you for one day a year.
Soon after that we were given notice to leave that house, and moved my plant pots from one little patio to another. We really have lived in a lot of places - partly through life choices, and partly because of well-documented societal structures that I hardly need repeat. This tree germinated just about exactly at the moment when I woke up abruptly in my late 30s and realised that I was existentially, desperately and dramatically dog-tired of moving house.
And so this unsuspecting walnut became hung about with some heavy symbolism. There is something uncomfortable about a tree that wants to be so big in a pot so small, always ready to go to the next place. I imagined its roots coiling ever tighter, never able to really connect with the place it’s in.
My instinctive response to this situation was to think that we needed to buy a house with a garden, to give this inhibited being a place to grow and thrive. But I am aware of the problems with this. There are the obvious financial and practical barriers to owning property. But then, aren’t western ideas about ‘owning’ land fundamentally misguided? Is it selfish of me to want to tend this tree on a patch of land?
I don’t think it is. Jo McKerr draws attention to the idea of ‘hortophilia’ – ‘the desire to interact with, manage and tend nature’ – a term coined by Oliver Sacks as an extension to biophilia. I think both of these are natural human inclinations, if we have the opportunity to tune in to them.
I want to take care of a place. I want to get to know it intimately – it takes at least two cycles of seasons to learn how the light moves through a space, and many more to understand what happens in a harsh winter, a mild one, a wet summer. I want to do slow gardening. I want to look after the soil. It doesn't have to ‘belong’ to me, or be for me alone – I just want to nurture a place for a good while. (and I’m aware that part of my reason for changing careers to become a gardener is to get more time but also more space in which to be with plants)
So what would it take for people like me and my tree to find a spot to grow on our crowded island? If I think about it too long, I get big ideas. A complete restructure of control of and access to land… founded on a fundamental reimagining of our relationship with the land… which might emerge if more people can reconnect with and reimagine their place within our more-than-human biome…
If all this sounds too huge, here are some concrete things that would help. We need more allotments/community gardens/parks/green spaces that local people can help look after - private gardens are not the only way for people to connect with plants and the land (see Gemma Jerome). We need secure work and better legislation for renters, to give people the option of staying in one place. It takes time to get an allotment, establish good no-dig beds, or to get permission and a grant to plant up a community space. It would be great if we could end the love affair between landlords and paving.
And I think we need different stories. I’ve thoroughly internalised the one about the person who moves city/country/continent pursuing an exciting career – and that’s what I did, until recently. But what about the one where a person stays put, goes deep? There is drama and richness and huge personal growth there too. Can we bring more more-than-human relationships into our stories?
But – others may be more optimistic – the system we’re in is unlikely to change radically any time soon. Whilst imagining an otherwise, it’s also important for me to do something meaningful in the meantime.
I’ve twice secured an allotment near a rented home, and twice had to leave it when landlords moved us on. What I do have is twelve months’ rent of a paved yard slightly bigger than a parking space, and mixed feelings about ideas often suggested for ‘rental gardening’. The quick sugar-rush hit of colourful annual flowers or a handful of home-grown tomatoes is glorious and intoxicating, and a valuable introduction to the world of plants, but it’s also limited and often resource intensive. I’m going in a different direction.
It’s perhaps unrealistic for me to get the paving taken up. But our yard is now crammed so full of pots it’s hard to get the bins out, and the bikes have had to take their chances chained up in the street. My garden is becoming more richly alive and connected than I would have thought possible from pictures in magazines of courtyard planters. The little walnut and hazel are in good company alongside a growing community of established plants, mostly perennials, not all exactly ‘suitable’ for pots. Many have been given to me – as bought gifts, as cuttings, as seeds. Each has a provenance, a story, a character.
Forget-me-nots have appeared, probably as passengers from my mum’s garden, and I move the seedlings in autumn to a better spot. There is also knapweed and wild carrot brought in as seed from the nearby meadows. Most of my pots are now large, at least part permanent loam, and have handfuls of real live soil added in the hope of some microbial action. While we luxuriate in our third consecutive year in the same place, the leaf mold has built up in the dark nooks between the pots, and we have woodlice, slugs, worms, plenty of buzzing visitors, and twice a toad. Very slowly over the last year, a wren has established its patch, followed by a robin. I know how the light moves through the space.
Lying in bed I half-dream the pots as a dense community, chatting away amongst themselves, merging into one big growing space and eventually smothering the paving completely. And I think the walnut feels easier in this company. I suspect at this point it may be institutionalised – it may not do well if it ever does reach open ground – but it doesn’t spend every day waiting.
P.S. I started writing this piece in one house, finished it in yet another. The story continues. I have at least repotted the poor walnut.
References
Jo Mckerr, ‘Rewildling our Aesthetics’ https://jomckerr.com/rewilding-our-aesthetics/
Gemma Jerome, ‘On why we shouldn’t all be wishing for a garden of our own’ https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/gardeners/gemma-jerome
Jenny McCallum is a gardener, writer, allotmenteer and renter. You can find her on Instagram @accidental_walnut.
Jenny has donated this article to Radicle.