alan frost photography

The tale of the missing watering can!

By alan frost on August 24, 2015

My wife and I do not profess to be gardeners, although we have spent the summer trying to make our back garden less of a wilderness of weeds and more one of pots, plants and climbers – in other words a place not to be ashamed of but to enjoy.

Having bought a few new plants we of course needed to keep them well watered. Our old watering can was required but unfortunately we could not find the rose which is normally attached to the stem of the can. Without the rose, the water comes out at a furious rate drowning the new plant and rendering the watering can a rather poor piece of gardening equipment.

We decided to see if we could buy a new metal rose and not a plastic one, which might work perfectly well but to our eyes would look rather odd. We even went so far as to take the can to a number of garden centres to ensure that we bought a rose which would fit. We couldn’t find a metal rose anywhere, so we resigned ourselves to buy a new plastic watering can. Not great but it did the job and was quite cheap.

A week or so later we were back in the garden and my wife found the old metal rose behind a small pile of bricks. Frustrated and delighted to have found it we went looking for the old watering can. We hunted around the garden, which isn’t very big, in the garage and the shed. It was nowhere to be found. We could be forgiven for losing the rose but losing a watering can, well that’s not quite so easy! We soon came to the conclusion that we must have left it at one of the garden centres when we were searching for a replacement rose. How embarrassing! However that didn’t stop my tenacious wife ringing the places we had been just in case someone had stumbled upon our missing watering can. No such luck but it was worth a try.

This weekend we went shopping for a few more plants and as we walked around we had half an eye out for our watering can. No such luck, but before we left I said to my wife, lets just take a look at the watering can section inside the garden centre. It had been moved to a new area but undeterred we found it. Much to our surprise, there on one of the shelves was our old metal watering can! Unlike any of the others for sale, it certainly didn’t look new (because it wasn’t), it had no price tag, but along with all the other cans it had been diligently moved by if not one, then possibly by two or more members of staff to a new display.

Much to our delight we picked it up and having paid for our plants and a few more pots at the checkout, we returned home and reunited the rose and the watering can.

It has a valued purpose in life; looks so much better than the plastic version, and thanks to this little tale, now has a character all of its own.

To see the watering can in all its glory do click on the image to view a larger version which will open in an new window.