It’s not considered prudent or polite, it may even be treasonous, to question the government’s priorities during the Covid lock-down. But what on earth do they think they’re doing shutting down plant nurseries, and at the height of the planting season, when they’re bursting with stock that must either be planted out soon or condemned to rot? I’m peering through the fence at our local nursery, Rassell’s, at a feast of plants at their peak of beauty. The owner Richard Hood (who is watering everything, every evening) tells me he understands that if he sold fruit we could go in to buy it. Not a pansy, though.
What’s the difference between a nursery and a supermarket? You can do social distancing as well in one as the other. What’s more nurseries are outdoors, and locked-down gardeners are longing to be up and doing. Are they confusing plant nurseries with garden centres that sell more burgers and barbecue kits than living plants? By all means shut the hardware departments, but isn’t it essential to nurture living things?
There is a well-publicised consensus at present that nature is good for you; gardening is good for the nerves, not to mention the soul. We haven’t heard much from Number 10 about souls. I am longing to sit in our parish church, sixteen feet away from the next person if necessary, if only to absorb its atmosphere of holiness. Archbishop Welby should understand that, even if Whitehall is oblivious.
