The archetypal gardener is Sam Gamgee, quietly and leisurely clipping the hedges or lawns of Bag End; or - at this time of year - raking leaves. Gardening was associated with peace, and absorbed contemplation. Gardeners were usually slow thinkers - but wise with an earthy common sense; borne of slow, sustained, tranquil tasks.
Not any more! The gardeners of 2020 - whether professional or hobbyists, have made gardening into a variant of all that is vile in mainstream modern life.
Raking the lawn, while enjoying the smells and sounds of autumn; has been replaced by a frantically hurried operative, deploying an ear-splitting 'leaf blower', muffled with eye- and ear-protection, and surrounded by the acrid stench of a two-stroke engine. Neighbours for a raduis of half a mile are compelled to share in the broadcast pollution.
Even worse are those wood-chippers into-which allegedly 'eco-friendly' gardeners feed twigs and branches to make a crude mulch. Some of these are as noisy as a pneumatic drill, spray high velocity particles like a fragmentation grenade... and again there are billows of exhaust fumes.
Hedge-trimming is another urgent, noisy activity replacing a thoughtful one; and the gentle boc boc of a woodman's axe is replaced by the screaming chainsaw.
Gardening has become just-another busy, loud, smelly, expensive, meaningless modern chore; and as of 2020, gardeners - as a species - are very-nearly as smugly entitled as... cyclists.
