Sainted Mother

Talking of asparagus, years ago my mother created an asparagus bed behind the old polythene greenhouse my dad put up. She got a crop from it in it's second year but the following year when she when to see what was happening there was no sign of anything growing. For years she blamed my dad for destroying her asparagus bed but the other day I was listening to The Food Programme on the radio and I think I may have discovered what really happened.
The asparagus season is very short and usually stops in the middle of June the reason being that if you go on cropping it to the very end there will be nothing left to nourish the crown or root. It turned out that my mother didn't know this. She cut all the asparagus as it grew well past the end of the season till there was none left and no asparagus the next year.
My mother was always accusing my dad of cutting down or digging out her plants but she's a nightmare in the garden herself. Today I found her yanking out armfuls of poppies that had grown from seeds I'd scattered last year. We really need a new pair of loppers but if I get them she will just use them to mutilate the trees and shrubs. If she ever knew how to prune things properly she has forgotten. We have got some weird looking trees and shurbs and in the summer she just seems to be obsessed with giving every thing a bad haircut.
Last year when I was visiting my sister I had the neighbour's watching out for any signs of my mother hacking at the trees. One of them, who is an ex police officer wondered if she was expected to shout through a loudhaler, "Mrs Brown you are surrounded put down your loppers and move away from the magnolia tree."