Vita Sackville West (1892-1962) was famous for her English gardens at Sissinghurst, but also for her columns on gardening in The Observer newspaper in Britain. She not only gardened, but she could also write articles that delighted readers.
All her readers loved them, whether they gardened or not. She wrote, for example:
"The more I prowl around my garden, the more I become convinced that a great secret of good gardening is covering every patch of the ground with some suitable carpeter...plant the odd corners with little low things that will crawl about, keeping weeds away and tucking themselves into nooks that otherwise would be devoid of interest or prettiness, violets for instance. And there are many other carpeters, some for sunny places and some for shade. Shady corners are more likely to worry the gardener trying to cram every chink and cranny. But the list of carpeters is endless and every odd corner should be packed with something permanent, of interest and beauty, tucking itself into something else in the natural way of plants when they sow themselves and combine as we would never combine them. Wildflowers, for example, and ajuga, arabis, plumbago, wild petunia, thyme, bergenia, sedges, Virginia bluebells, epimediums, wild geraniums, sweet woodruff, and dwarf iris.”
(Note: Carpet plants usually spread on their own without any help from the gardener.)
Vita Sackville West (1892-1962) was famous for her English gardens at Sissinghurst, but also for her columns on gardening in The Observer newspaper in Britain. She not only gardened, but she could also write articles that delighted readers.
All her readers loved them, whether they gardened or not. She wrote, for example:
"The more I prowl around my garden, the more I become convinced that a great secret of good gardening is covering every patch of the ground with some suitable carpeter...plant the odd corners with little low things that will crawl about, keeping weeds away and tucking themselves into nooks that otherwise would be devoid of interest or prettiness, violets for instance. And there are many other carpeters, some for sunny places and some for shade. Shady corners are more likely to worry the gardener trying to cram every chink and cranny. But the list of carpeters is endless and every odd corner should be packed with something permanent, of interest and beauty, tucking itself into something else in the natural way of plants when they sow themselves and combine as we would never combine them. Wildflowers, for example, and ajuga, arabis, plumbago, wild petunia, thyme, bergenia, sedges, Virginia bluebells, epimediums, wild geraniums, sweet woodruff, and dwarf iris.”
This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on carpeting.