Slow Gardening

In an entertaining article today* James Alexander-Sinclair draws inspiration from the Slow Food movement to extol the pleasures of Slow Gardening. He says: “Often the greatest pleasure is in the waiting: to appreciate the progress of the plant at every stage from seed to cotyledon to sapling to fully grown. This is the principle behind slow gardening: enjoying the process as much as the result”. Every gardener, he says, should be wary of the temptations offered by the larger store or garden centre, whose plants are mass-produced, and do their shopping instead in the local nursery where they will find dedication, expertise, quality and value.

Just as the grocery shopper will find much better quality and value at a specialist food store or farm shop than in a supermarket.
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But the real Slow Gardener will rarely set foot inside a nursery, let alone a garden centre. The Slow Gardener will be growing plants from seed or increasing his stock through propagation, division or exchange. This is where the real link between Slow Gardening and Slow Food exists- they are in fact one and the same person, busy growing their own food, which will beat anything that the farm shop has to offer.

*Daily Telegraph G4 & 5.