According to some accounts Lady Godiva, on her horseback ride sans clothes through medieval Coventry, was followed by an enthusiastic gardener bearing a bucket and shovel.
This might have been the inspiration for World Naked Gardening Day. Apparently though, it was not. Instead it owes its beginnings one day in 2005. It was then that the Body Freedom Collaborative organized an event in Australia when something more than leaves were shed. Since that auspicious date, the celebration has taken on an international aspect, run on the first Saturday in May--this year on the 5
th.
While watering, weeding, planting and similar maintenance is acceptable, any action involving thorny bushes or vines is inadvisable. Extremely inadvisable is the use of power tools such as hedge trimmers, filament weeders and, especially, lawn mowers.
Baring all also offers mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies and others and all-you-can-eat buffet. Deter these unwanted intruders into paradise with lavish lubrications of insect repellents.
There comes the quandary faced by those with small, urban gardens, or even restricted to apartment balconies. For them, it might be simpler and safer to seek inspiration, as many a plant developer has done, in Godiva, Countess of Mercia.
Yes, the lady really did exist--her name meant 'Gift of God.' She put a new meaning to bare-back equestrian practices on her excursion through Coventry in the 11
th century to reduce excessive taxes imposed on tenants by husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia. The event has been celebrated in at least one movie, featuring Maureen O'Hara in the 1955 production
Lady Godiva of Coventry.
Horticulturally though, more productions celebrate Leofric's lady. As long ago as 1907, rose hybridizer George Paul released the light pink rambler 'Lady Godiva' that may trail as much as 30 feet. More recently, famed David Austin introduced another rambler rose of the same name, a white, fragrant, sport of 'Dorothy Perkins.' At home in the flower border or containers is the heat-tolerant
Calendula 'Lady Godiva' bearing large orange flowers. The perennial border will welcome the white-margined, fast-growing
Hosta 'Lady Godiva, perhaps not inappropriately a sport of
Hosta 'Striptease.' Lady Godiva has also commercial levels in the so-named 'naked seed' pumpkin, an industry standard for pumpkin seed oil.
Lady Godiva notwithstanding, a final word of warning about disrobing in horticultural pursuits. The judiciary take a jaundiced eye on such activities. Practioners have been prosecuted. Forget revealing that Adam, tending the Garden of Eden, did so in a state of nature. The law casts a disapproving eye on casting off clothes in public. But it might be worth testing as a novel appeal for tax reduction . . .
