It’s happening again, it happens every year at about this
time so it is not a surprise, it is certainly not a shock; but it is a
disappointment nonetheless. We are now
entering the period of the year when the garden disappears like Brigadoon
during the week only to be seen at weekends.
I might as well not have a garden during the week once the
nights really draw in, I cannot wander around it in daylight so it effectively
is not there. Currently as I get home I
do get a wonderful blast of scent from the Rosa Gertrude Jekyll that climbs by
the front door but otherwise it is becoming just a dark mass of shapes I cannot
quite see in the dark.
Now I have put the thought that it is Brigadoon into my
head, one of my all time favourite films and I am certain I have mentioned it
before, I have wonderful visions of people in unrealistic technicolor tartan
dancing around the pond with unrealistic Scottish accents. I do love a good unrealistic accent, they are
so much more fun than convincing ones.
I think I’ve had Brigadoon on the mind since watching
Gardeners World the other day when there was a section on heather. Now I love heather growing in the wild, there
are few finer sights than a heather-covered moor or scrubby outcrop. Whenever we are visiting Portmeirion we spend
quite a bit of time in the Gwyllt and there are great swathes of heather on the
cliff-tops and they are usually buzzing with bees and wildlife.
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In a domestic garden though I think it is more difficult to
use well. When I first
moved into my last house in Nottingham, the garden was largely lawn with a few
shrubs and stuff dotted around and also a sort of rockery bit covered in
various heathers. These heathers were
overgrown and tatty and I did not know what to do with them so I gave them a
hair cut in the hope they would bounce back ok.
They did bounce back and then just sort of sat there looking
rather unbouncy and uninspiring to be honest.
At this point in my gardening life though I was still very much a novice
and still held back by the thought that if a plant was in a garden and healthy
that it was somehow wrong and indeed possibly murder to remove it wantonly. I was talking to someone one day in the garden
(it was the front garden there was no real back garden to speak of) and they
pointed to the heathers and said disparagingly ‘lazy planting’. I asked them what they meant and they
explained that heathers planted like that was just ground cover for people who
couldn’t garden any more or who were just lazy.
This thought stayed with me though, clearly heathers were not a must
have plant and possibly it could be justified to remove them.
So I ripped them out
As you do
Gardeners World did make me think about heathers again (yes,
you see it does have its uses) and I am wondering if I could put some in the
garden, maybe in the Wild Garden rather than trying to make them look domestic
in a border setting. I am going to think
on this some more as at the moment it is has the vague feeling of the edge of a
whim. I do know if I do get some it will
not be any of those fluorescent coloured things I see sometimes at DIY stores,
that I do know.
and Heathers is a great film.