Conservatories

My gardening obsession has taken a turn for the worse. This weekend, a room in the house was demolished to give me more growing space. Calling it a room is perhaps an exaggeration, but it certainly had a floor, a door and windows and, in summer, was home to several hundred bees, hence its nickname – The Bee House. Quite an evocative title considering that this room was a glorified lean-to.

Occasionally a visitor would remark (inaccurately), ‘Oh, you have a conservatory,’ and you could almost see the wretched lean-to take on airs and graces and start fancying itself, and thinking that it deserved to be adorned with exotic palms and orchids instead of the boxes of washing powder, odd socks and dead bees of its mundane, everyday life.

I was once interviewed by a journalist whose husband was the Mr Big of the conservatory world. She explained that it was a well-known fact that couples who wanted a conservatory inevitably had problems with their marriage, and that just as some married fools think that another baby will heal their festering relationship (ha!), others think a glass room with wicker furniture and plants will do the trick.

Incidentally, the interview was abandoned halfway through. She took a phone call during which her hand went to her throat, the colour drained from her face and she said to me, ‘You'll have to leave, right now.’ I ran from the house and she passed me, running, on the pavement. For a few days I speculated on the reason for our hasty departures. A bomb threat from a disaffected conservatory owner? A lover threatening to jump from the top of Canary Wharf? A child forgotten at the school gates?

To get back to conservatories. Why are they so desirable? A straw poll reveals that people want conservatories because:

1. they will gain space
2. they will be able to see more of the garden
3. they will be able to grow exotic plants and fruits, such as peaches and nectarines
4. (women only) they will be able to lie on a wicker sofa and read a book at the weekend
5. (men only) it will be somewhere dry where they can work on that old car engine in peace at the weekend

Whereas a straw poll of conservatory owners reveals:

1. no space is gained; a conservatory becomes a repository for household junk
2. you cannot see the garden or the sky or the tops of the trees because of the sun blinds you have been forced to fit
3. you cannot grow exotic plants, due to excessive drying out during your absence on holiday. Teenage children are congenitally unable to water any living thing (cannabis is probably the only exception)
4. you will be uncomfortably hot in the summer, unpleasantly cold in the winter, and anyway, you will be driven mad by the creaking of the wicker every time you turn a page of that book
5. no, there are no miracle products on the market at the moment that will remove engine oil stains from terracotta tiles, pvc windows or wicker

So the room/lean-to / Bee House and almost-conservatory is gone. A husband, a son and a son-in-law wrestled the thing down on Saturday. On Sunday we gathered on what was left of it – the floor – and people started to call it ‘the terrace’. I've always thought of a terrace as a place where aristocrats go to be sick after drinking too much at a ball, so another name will have to be found for it.

I must watch this lust for horticulture, though. Last weekend I found myself in a queue at the garden centre checkout, sneering openly at an old bloke's trolley that was filled with red salvia. Earlier, I had eavesdropped on a conversation between two middle-aged women who were bent over an azalea.

First Woman: ‘What's that?’ Second Woman (reading label): ‘It's an azalea.’ FW: ‘No, it can't be. I bought an azalea last week and it was nothing like that; it had different leaves and different-coloured flowers.’ SW: ‘It's got the wrong label on, then. I wonder what it is?’

I stopped myself from lecturing them about the hundreds of varieties of azaleas available, but it was a near thing. I had to remind myself that my own ignorance about computers, driving a car or the situation in the Middle East is equally profound.