3 may 2010, not so green shoots

I have a wonderful thing: a garden. A househunting must-have, deluded as we still were that about the manchester climate that these wonderful green spaces are calm, healthy bits of verdant nature on your doorstep. I also have a problem: a garden. It's not that I'm lazy or incapable of planting some potatoes and mowing the lawn (though that may be true), it's that I don't particularly enjoy it, and it's not what I choose to do with my precious time. Three gardeners have passed by, but all say the same thing: back-to-back, mate, can't take on any more work. This leaves me with two contradictory thoughts. Firstly, why aren't these guys upping their rates (as the demand is there) and employing an apprentice or three so they can get more done ? Secondly, how great that there's still a bit of the economy where loyalty and locality reign and it's not all about profits, margins and squeezing value from basic service provision. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, as I don't want a gardeners-are-us national franchise putting these community stalwarts out of business - but here is untapped value in the heald green economy that all would prosper from, albeit some more than others. Most of all though, I'd love a little tlc to be sprinkled around my few square metres of green so when that one day's sunshine turns up mid-august I can enjoy it to the full in my own backyard...