Thursday, 11 April 2019
I read the rest of The Ivington Diaries by Monty Don, my favourite kind of book, a very personal and revealing journal about making a garden by one of my favourite gardeners.
The entirety is simply wonderful. (You can get it from Timberland Regional Library.)
Some of my best takeaways:
“The more every day is like its predecessor, the better I like it.”
In talking about ground-cover plants: “Perhaps all ground-cover plants should have a big sticker saying, ‘Be careful—this plant does precisely what it claims.’ ….The moral of the story is to never plant ground cover of any kind in a border. It never coexists with any satisfactory mix of plants. Better to use it as an end in itself or not at all.”
The horror of the lesser celandine, with which I am also cursed:
All the British telly gardeners go on about horticultural grit, which is not available bagged anywhere around here (not the kind that I see on the telly):
Staycation!
….
I heartily agree, that is the perfect vacation.
For someone who loves routine, as he mentions more than once, Monty Don admits that it is hard sometimes for him to travel so much for work (French Gardens, Italian gardens, Around the World in 80 Gardens) and yet he excels at looking happy and relaxed in his garden tour shows.
I was in heaven through all the hours of reading.
Perfect description of pear trees:
I suppose some might say Monty sometimes writes purple prose (although far less so than Reginald Farrer or Beverley Nichols). I just love it to bits.
I got teary-eyed over this book more than once.
A garden sign, so true:
A website for Bryan’s Ground is here.
Now, this is the thing….Monty perfectly describes why I can’t (yet) try to make my garden less work.
An unhelpful friend said to me when we moved to our present garden that the lot was too big (much smaller than Ivington!) and that I would not be able to keep it up in my old age. Well, I can’t keep it up now while working, but I do hope there will be at least a few magic years of partial retirement when I CAN do so and can achieve all the ideas that I have for this garden. (Allan hopes he can have years of enjoying boating and not having to help me achieve all my garden dreams, I suppose.)
……
There was a year, 1987, when I could not garden because of depression. In that hot summer of unusual drought, shrubs in the garden (an azalea, some roses, and more) that had been my grandmother’s pride died from neglect. So I appreciate when Monty shares his own such struggles:
I lay on the couch back then pining for a lost love. The emptiness later where plants had died eventually gave me room to make the garden my own.
As well as emotional and revealing, The Ivington Diaries is full of useful gardening knowledge. (Painted Lady and Cupani are two of the sweet peas that I grow.)
This passage about roses….
…reminds me of the hideous new hybrid tea called Ketchup and Mustard that I am horrified by every time I see it. ….Although we could have used it humorously back when we did the McDonalds drive through garden in Long Beach.
I learned a new word…”strig is the bit that … all berries are attached to.”
I am quite thrilled when a gardener I so admire has a failing that I share:
More on that plant that I crave:
Poor Miss Willmott. I have a feeling people will say, when I die, if they remember me at all, that I was a bit of a pain (or worse).
I would like to be remembered more like this old gardener of Monty’s youth:
….Another passage that brought tears to me eyes.
I enjoyed Monty’s story of hosting a garden competition show and having one of the contestants say she had entered “primarily so that she might meet Alan Titchmarsh”!
I wish Allan and I could have been Monty’s Norman and Jayne!
I feel better now at all my unoriginal ideas:
Monty rhapsodizes a lot about working in the garden with Sarah, and about her design skills….but even they have their moments…
That makes me feel better than sometimes Allan’s and my workdays are like Bickering with the Bickersons.
Finishing the book in the late afternoon, I was inspired to go out and take a tour of my own garden.
First, biscuits for Bentley and Cotah.
Pear tree admiration:
The good ship Ann Lovejoy:
I like the good ship a lot. It is very successful.
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Thanks, Mr T!
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Thank you for reviewing this book, loved it!
Perhaps it is a good thing bags of horticultural grit are not available here at that price, or my budget would take a hammering.
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I think “washed gravel” would work, in bulk, but we don’t have that there, either. Interesting that your part of Canada, closer to the UK than we are, if you know what I mean, doesn’t have horticultural grit available either!
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That pear tree is so pretty! I love all the spring blossoms in your garden. I do use some groundcovers (lamium in the shade, sedums in the sun). They help to prevent shot weed from growing.
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