Nooks and crannies

NOBODY understands more than a gardener that Nature abhors a vacuum.

- Alan Titchmarsh

Bare earth is soon colonised by what we disparagingly refer to as ‘weeds’, although wise sons and daughters of the soil know that the true definition of the word is ‘any plant growing where it is not wanted’. Under this premise, a beautiful rose is a weed in the cabbage patch.

I am always disheartened by those who regard gardening as nothing more than tidying up or weeding. Being someone who plants quite densely, there is seldom room in my beds and borders for swathes of weeds —the cultivated plants sitting shoulder to shoulder allow little room for interlopers. Odd strands of bindweed are hauled out when they are spotted and last summer’s rash of annual poppies and sow thistles (my compost must have been especially rich in their seeds this year) are satisfyingly easy to pull up.