Plants feel the cold as much as we do

In an ideal world, where, for example, the tenets of international law were respected, people were kind and certain words (eatery, tome, veggies) could not be uttered without my written permission, I’d have been prepared for this cold snap. It has been, after all, years since I first fell for the dubious delights of roof-terrace gardening. I must have accumulated knowledge. I’ve written an entire gardening memoir (Rhapsody in Green, available now as an audiobook narrated, when not helpless with laughter at my own jokes, by me), been the gardening correspondent for the New Yorker and now here. I’ve read dozens of repetitive gardening magazines and puzzled over multiple charts. You wouldn’t believe the number of acquaintances who think I’d be able, let alone willing, to give shrubbery guidance. Besides, winter should hardly be a surprise, even in this muddled century. The media have been heralding this dramatic, by British standards, freezing spell for days. And, most importantly, I love my plants. I tend my roof terrace, February-October, with a possibly dangerous level of passion, training up my seedlings like tiny Russian gymnasts, dribbling coffee grounds on to favoured plants, turning and tying them so that by June it’s a blazing square of bean-blossom, the magenta bugles of pineapple sage and fierce orange calendula-suns, the felty leaves of physalis and purple ruffled shiso; drowsily scented sweet peas; Thai basil, marjoram and wild strawberries, all fuzzy with hoverflies and bees. Then it grows cold, and I fail them.

This year, for the first time, I bought tulip bulbs early. I love tulips comprehensively, indiscriminately: whether frisky or histrionically dying, the classy amethyst-indigo Queen of the Night or yer basic yeller, fragranced or plain, titchy or tall. Yet although bulb-buying is exciting, the cinema pick ’n’ mix of middle age, a couple of packets from the garden centre never achieves the multicoloured chaos I require. So, in October, I bought two relatively classy mixed boxes: genius. Or so I thought.

They have been sitting in my Urgent Gardening Bag beside the roof-terrace door ever since, together with the scissors for trimming spindly lemon verbena twigs and French tarragon while it was still mild, the packs of winter-hardy seeds (lettuce Reine de Glace, radicchios, mustard greens) for sowing in early autumn, refrigerated garlic bulbs for November sprouting, the old rags and stolen children’s erasers I’ve requisitioned for the official year-end Cleaning of Old Plastic Plant-Labels. Perfectly reasonably, they trusted that their day would come, as soon as the nights turned cool. Failing that, once there was a risk of frost. I may love Bendicks Bittermints and televised murder as much as the next woman, but – as the neighbours can sadly confirm – I can garden in any circumstances: by torchlight, barefoot, wearing little more than galoshes and a smile. Surely the frost wouldn’t stop me? And yet...

That gardening bag is my scarlet letter, my mark of shame. All winter it has been sending me baleful glances; I think I’ve heard it softly moan. The shunned secateurs are bad enough, the unsown broad beans and unopened, now expired winter citrus feed, but what haunts me most is the bubble wrap. I have hoarded yards, hectares, nautical miles of bubble wrap for wrapping up containers. Every publisher’s book-proof and unwise Etsy ceramic brings lashings of it. I have also, inevitably, invested in horticultural fleece, keep moth-eaten knitwear and am regularly given long lanolin-reeking insulating bags of felted wool by carnivore friends.

“Don’t touch that,” I scream at loved ones as they tiptoe towards the dustbin with one of my treasures. “It’s for the plants,” and, avoiding eye contact, no sudden movements, they back away. But still, the containers’ life-saving winter wardrobe goes unused.

Like many easily distracted adults, I make lists. Yah, they’re actually an incredibly powerful tool for reminding one of all the jobs one doesn’t want to do, while providing absolutely no incentive to complete them. If you paid or fed me, I’d whip through them, no problem, but for the sheer pleasure of crossing something out? Thanks, but no. Meanwhile, the allegedly frost-proof terracotta cracks. Among the few rotting shreds of insulation and duct-tape I have bothered to use, like Christo and Jeanne-Claude on an off-day, excited snails, assembling for family parties among the air-deprived foliage, ring their friends to join the fun. My precious Lord Bute pelargonium may be shivering, my dearly beloved Chilean guava turning blue, but I am unable to stir my lazy limbs and go and save them.

Of course I could plant the bulbs tonight, wrap the pots, save my roof terrace from total devastation. There is still time. But wouldn’t it be more productive, arguably, to spend my evening researching cold frames and miniature greenhouses? The poor plants are doomed, but surely they’d want their descendants to be warm?