Three years ago she met a professional gardener and they formed a partnership

General — July 24, 2010 at 10:17

Three years ago she met a professional gardener and they formed a partnership. I spoke to her in the bijou 50ft by 30ft garden of a semi-detached house in Tooting, south London, that belongs to Sarah Gornall, an interior designer.Sarah explains how they found each other. Most gardeners now serve many mistresses, flitting between a portfolio of plots once a week or a fortnight, like bees gathering nectar. I spoke to three of them and their clients, to see how the subtleties of this age-old relationship work out in these modern times.THE ARTISAN & THE DESIGNERNikki Greaves trained as a carpenter and joiner but became interested in gardening when she began working on voluntary projects on organic farms. The best gardeners must, like accountants or therapists, convince employers that they hold the key to natural mysteries the uninitiated can never hope to penetrate. This puts them on a more rarefied plane than other home-helpers, such as cleaners.A century ago, the typical gardener was on the staff of a big house, the post often handed down from father to son Today, not many people can afford full-time help.

Each regards the other warily and with varying degrees of respect. If it would help assuage her grief, he said, “I would my skill were subject to thy curse”. He promised to sow a bank of rue, “sour herb of grace”, to commemorate her sorrow.Of all a woman’s potential relationships, that with a gardener is among the most complex and delicate. When Queen Isabella heard from her gardener that her husband the King had been captured by his enemy Bolingbroke, she exclaimed:

“Gardener, for telling me this news of woe,/I would the plants thou graft’st may never grow.”
The gardener responded to this heartless taunt in the best traditions of his profession, with understanding and a self-denying absence of rancour. THE FIRST clash between the mistress of a household and her gardener may have been the one described by Shakespeare in Richard II; but it was not on a horticultural issue. This model won his approval for its styling: “It is less plasticky than some. It feels solid, and could probably be knocked about without minding too much.” He criticised it, though, because it doesn’t have an integrated spreadsheet (you have to buy it as an extra).STOCKISTS Psion 3a Series: available from Dixons, WH Smith and Boots; Hewlett Packard: Dixons; Casio: telephone 0181-208 0948 for local stockists; Sharp: telephone 0800 262 958 for local stockists; Texas Instruments: WH Smith, or by mail order from Viking Direct (0800 424 444)..

These could be printed out or faxed.The manufacturer’s main selling point is that this model can be used extensively for communications sending and receiving electronic mail, and sending faxes. It can network with up to 20 other Zaurus users useful for a fleet of sales reps, though not for individuals who, like Adam Banks, do not have anyone else with a Zaurus to talk to.Adam was impressed by the built-in facility to transmit data using infra red simply point it at another Zaurus, press a button, and the information is beamed across Again, he was unable to test this in practice. But it is not anti-reflective which is “quite annoying”.A useful feature is “Scrapbook”, which lets you draw diagrams or flow- charts, combined with graphics showing building, railways and so on useful for drawing up maps to show clients how to reach you. Adam Banks liked the screen: “It is massive, which is really great.” The screen seems better arranged to display information than the shorter but wider Psion screen and, as the lid is hinged less firmly, can be moved to any position. It does not, however, turn handwriting into text as the Hewlett Packard Omnigo does. Best of all, this model is fun to play with and unless an organiser is enjoyable, it won’t be used.****SHARP ZAURUS ZE-5000 PERSONAL COMMUNICATOR1Mb memory; 17cm x 10cm x 2.5cm; 14 lines x 54 characters display; pounds 399.99This organiser uses both a keyboard and a touch pen.

The pen is used to write notes and draw, as well as to operate functions by pointing at the screen. Not so good were the keys on the keyboard, which were small and fiddly. Though Adam thought all the computers were too expensive, he said this was good value for money cheaper and better value than the Psion (unless you were going to use all its extra software). It’s worth noting that you can’t send faxes and it doesn’t have a wordprocessing package.The Hewlett Packard has all the usual functions, including a quite advanced finance module, allowing you, for example, to work out the loan rate, and a good calculator Another bonus was the anti-reflective screen. Adam also felt it would have been useful if, when used as a notebook, the keyboard could be operated at the same time. “It takes only 20 minutes for me to learn how to use this.”The only glitch was that the machine didn’t seem to recognise punctuation marks, mistaking them for letters or numerals. “Someone who has used the Apple Newton told me the machine takes six months to learn your handwriting,” said Adam.