frame and a lighter-gauge steel bucket. It’s what passes for a wheelbarrow nowadays and dozens of its type line the entranceways of big-box stores in spring. Some have a polypropylene bucket. Some have two wheels. None impress. For sturdiness is of the essence, and a good wheelbarrow—like our old trustworthy—should last for decades, if not generations. The built-in obsolescence of the flimsy barrows now on offer is an insult to the great legacy of barrowing and contemptible to any true-blue barrow-man or -woman.
One of my main barrow tasks is wheeling in the winter firewood. No road penetrates our woodlot and the big barrow is perfect for navigating narrow footpaths and rolling over tree roots (something at which low-slung and long-snouted ersatz barrows are hopeless). It’s work enough getting in the hundred-plus loads required to fill the woodshed every autumn, without the added aggravation of periodically ramming into a protruding rock or root.
Moving massive stones from place to place often requires innovative measures. If a stone’s too heavy to be picked up and placed in the barrow, I use a roll-and-jerk technique, much like an Olympic weightlifter. The barrow is laid on its side and the stone rolled onto the edge of the bucket. Then bucket and stone are jerked upright together. If a hernia isn’t induced by the lifting, it may be by subsequent wobbling around with the overloaded barrow. Tipping techniques can be tricky too. Unless meticulously tipped, a load of precious compost or fresh cement may disgorge sideways, entirely missing the intended point of deposition.
The Old English noun “barrow” also means a hill or hillock, but wheelbarrows and hills don’t go well together. Pushing a loaded barrow uphill can bring a dismaying sense of gradual momentum loss, followed by teetering uncertainty as inertia’s about to defeat you, then a grunting stall. Getting a running head start at an impending incline sometimes helps. Descending a hill, the opposite’s true, as gravity tries to wrench the barrow from your grip and send it careening downhill. Disaster can sometimes be averted by pressing the barrow legs into the earth to try to brake the runaway barrow. On wet or icy ground the downhill slide may be a thing of terrifying beauty.
Mastering the intricacies of barrow operation can take longer than getting a medical diploma. Novices may be observed repeatedly picking up items and carrying them over to a barrow, rather than wheeling the barrow to where the items are. Some people take years to figure out it’s easier to point a barrow in its intended direction before loading it up. They’ll load to the brim and then get a herniated disc trying to turn the barrow around. Or they’ll load up in a spot so tight it can’t be turned around at all. Dragging a barrow backwards indicates an education considerably short of complete. Strategic reversing, on the other hand, is indicative of a sophisticated wheeler. When our woodshed’s almost full, I take satisfaction in first wheeling around and then reversing into the shed’s narrow passage so that pieces can be conveniently unloaded without a knee-knocking barrow intervening.
In the end, disposition of an old wheelbarrow requires careful consideration. Our first barrow was an ancient contraption with a steel wheel but no tire and a flat wooden bed into which wooden sides could be slotted. When we replaced it long ago, we burned it—only to later discover in a posh gardening magazine a photograph of an identical model gaily painted and planted with nasturtiums and available for a small fortune. So when in due course another old barrow came our way, we gussied it up with fresh paint, filled its bucket with objets trouvés and made it an installation in the flower garden. This is what passes for the wisdom of age.
But one could do far worse than spend one’s allotted time as a barrow-person. The fresh air. The exercise. The mental equilibrium. Having a wheelbarrow is almost like having a personal trainer. Then, after a long life of barrowing, it would be fitting to spend your declining days like one of those wizened oldsters pictured in “developing” countries, being wheeled around the marketplace while reclining in a wheelbarrow. That would be the wheel deal.
Cutting Loose
The cutting and lopping of superfluous branches or twigs from vines, trees and shrubs, to promote flowering and fruitfulness or to induce a particular shape, may be a dominant part of the gardener’s early spring. Because smooth pruning demands deployment of the right tool for each job, an avid pruner’s tool kit typically contains an impressive arsenal of cutting devices. On our grounds, finicky snipping is accomplished with ikebana scissors whose slender blades can poke into scarcely penetrable places. We keep half-a-dozen pairs on hand, as they’re useful for any number of ancillary jobs, from cutting twine to shamelessly slicing destructive black slugs in half.
But these lightweights have their limits, and heavier cutting requires pruning shears or secateurs, which is where trouble begins. Most secateurs are, like computer viruses, designed by sociopaths. I keep as evidence a pair of old anvil pruners whose blade chops down against a flat surface. Rather than a clean cut, these brutes invariably give any twig they encounter a tip of mashed pulp. They’re intended for removing deadwood, where a clean cut is unnecessary, or for doing preliminary clips thus saving wear and tear on your superior secateurs, but I find them extremely annoying, particularly as they’re often the only pruners you can lay your hand on when a clean cut’s called for.
Where precise slicing is required, bypass blades are a better bet. Here one is required to choose between a well-crafted and expensive pair or the el-cheapo variety forever on sale as loss leaders in unimaginative gardening outlets. With parsimony our guiding star, we have traditionally gravitated toward the less-expensive alternative, which prove perfectly serviceable for the first half-dozen cuts. But the blades, fashioned near outer Shanghai from recycled mufflers and tailpipes, soon lose their edge. Each cut becomes a clasp wherein the target twig, rather than being severed cleanly, is pinched between the blades and refuses to let go.
A further annoyance is how the spring, inadequately implanted between the handles, periodically leaps free and lands at a distance from which it can be recovered, if at all, only after an extensive ground search.
Finally fed up with wayward springs and clasping cuts, one year I threw economic caution to the winds, purchasing a pair of designer secateurs with cherrywood handles and glittering steel blades that might have been forged at the anvil of Vulcan himself. Thus equipped, I became capable of astonishing keenness of cut. I felt I was, in Thomas Carlyle’s words, wielding “the scissors of Destiny.”
Alas, ’twas not to last. Unlike the garish orange plastic handles of its forerunners, this tony pair’s hardwood handles had an uncanny knack for camouflage. They were impossible to spot when left unattended in the garden, requiring lengthy searches whenever mislaid. After a brief career with us, they disappeared completely. Eventually I discovered their charred remains amid the ashes of the rose prunings. From fire they’d come and to fire returned. My lesson learned, I shuffled back to the familiar torments of the el-cheapos.
Loppers are required for branches too thick to be cut by secateurs. For years I employed an ancient pair of wooden-handled loppers inherited from my dad. When they finally succumbed to the frailties of age, I bought a pair of techno-loppers large enough to fell a giant sequoia. Their chief drawback is they’re impossible to get into tight corners, because the handles open so wide, and it’s remarkable how many stout stems and branches are too tucked away to be vulnerable to long-legged loppers. Visiting the in-laws on one occasion, I did some pruning for them with their newfangled pair of ratcheting loppers, both agile enough to reach into awkward spots and powerful enough to sever sizable branches. I would have been tempted to acquire a pair, had I not already learned my lesson with the high-toned secateurs.
Since our garden is an arboraceous affair, we’re constantly required to prune out tree branches high in the air. For decades I used an antique hardwood pole pruner with a tiny hooked blade controlled by a heavy-gauge wire running down the shaft. Eventually requiring something both longer and lighter, I bought a telescoping pruner that can reach almost four metres high. Both the complex lever system atop the pole and the thin rope that controls the blade have a dreadful tendency to get entangled in every branch they approach. Many’s
