It's gardening, Jim, but not as we know it. ('The DSM')

I have always been a keen gardener. I don't know any of the latin names (couldn't identify a Alopecurus from a Zannichellia), but I love being in the great outdoors, getting some gentle exercise and creating attractive areas in the garden by mixing and matching plants. 

I have a basic knowledge of some plants that like shade and others full sun, but I know nothing about the pH of soil, other than it can change the colour of hydrangea flowers. I decide where a plant would look good, dig a hole, shove it in and if it thrives, fantastic, if it starts wilting, I'll move it somewhere else.

Our gardens in the UK have always been small (no bigger than a tennis court). I have been able to weed, trim and mow them in a day, but since moving to France gardening has taken on a new meaning. 

We now have an acre of land and when I tell Anna, my wife, I'm going out to do some gardening, I really mean I am going to dig up brambles in various quarters of the estate. I have become obsessed by them. I see them in my dreams sending out tendrils, skipping across the ground, sinking their roots as they go. Like Grandmother's footsteps when my back is turned, they rush forward from the boundary fence or rocky outcrop. I have tried chopping them, poisoning them, but have learnt the only way to get rid of them is to dig them up. One bonus of all the rain we have been having recently is that it is much easier to pry the critters up, roots and all. 

I enjoy reading Greenfingers' article in 'The DSM' each month, listing all the jobs I should be doing. My list, unfortunately, is very short. Jobs for March - dig up brambles, check for new brambles, burn brambles. 

I exaggerate of course. When not battling the brambles I can be found digging up bindweed. Like King Canute I feel this is another battle I will not win. I don't like to poison and have tried my own environmentally friendly home-brew mixture which had no effect whatsoever...if anything it seemed to like it and the whole garden smelt of vinegar. I have tried digging down, several feet, to extract every strand of white root filament from the soil, but to no avail. 

The solution to the problem? I have decided which borders/flower beds I want to keep, and those which are time consuming and beyond reprieve, transplanted any shrubs to other areas of the garden and grassed over the beds - mowing a patch of ground is much more time effective. I am turning to pots for floral colour and interest, giving the plants a chance by not being consumed and ravaged by the bindweed.

We had four clumps of pampas grass when we moved in. Enormous things, the size of a small family car, popular in the 70s, usually in front gardens, a sign of 'swingers' apparently (although we're still waiting for the knock on the door and the jangle of keys). One of the four was where I wanted to extend my vegetable patch, so last year got rid of it...three left. After the first extraction I needed a year to recover. 

Number three was near the pond, where I wanted to put a bench for contemplation. So after chopping back as much excess growth as I could I reached for the matches. Pampas grass grows in a doughnut shape and the centre is ram packed with years of dead growth, so with favourable weather conditions I ignited that bad boy and stood well back. Fortunately, number three was not positioned near anything, apart from the pond, which wasn't flammable. On a wet winter's day the heat was welcome as I stood twenty feet away and my eyebrows haven't been the same since. 

Twenty four hours later, a crown of burnt stems remained, ready to spring back into life. So now the hard part - the roots had to be dug up. With an assortment of apposite tools from the shed I set to work. The tricky bit is digging the initial clump up and weakening the pampi. My tools of choice were a garden fork for leverage and an axe to sever. A friend at Franglais told me he went at one with a chainsaw which, not surprisingly, didn't work and broke the chainsaw. It took me four hours to dig the whole thing up and by the end I was a spent force, as I stood axe in hand like Jack Nicholson in The Shining surrounded by the carnage of charred clumps of pampas. 

Two left, one of which is very near the house so might be staying.

The pampas had the last laugh, as the next morning when I tried to get out of bed, I realised that I had twanged something in my lumbar and could hardly move. I had to shuffle about like Harvey Weinstein for three days. 

This year, back permitting, I hope to spend more time planting and less uprooting and axing. When was the last time you saw Carol Klein on Gardeners' World going at a pampas, axe in hand?