The World in Tune
My Not-So Humble Hop, and other good plants being what they are...
A reader (Linda Slow Growing in Scotland on substack) asked about the hop she’d seen in another photo and so I thought I’d have a think about it. Is it a thug, she asked?
Thugish, I’d say. Its roots and the way they root about are quite something. But still very worth having, especially if you have something for it to climb up or over. You can see from the picture here that this one has extended itself into the gravel at its base and is moving into the flower bed alongside those lovely open-faced osteospermums. So, yes, I do have to pull it out or cut it off from time to time. But I stick the bits in a pot of soil and then I have new plants to give to friends and relations, always a good thing.
In a bigger garden - and I’m thinking Calderstones, Nellist border - it could look good on a series of obelisks, offering lime green, very informal uprights. It’s a fast grower, too. And then you get the flowers, swags of chubby, bee shaped, origami-paper folds.
Lime greeny yellow is a good colour to have in my garden, and I love it in various forms - the Euphorbias, mainly.
They have the most awe-inspiring structure, these Euphorbias. ‘the world in tune’ as the poet Henry Vaughan says. And terrific growth habits - from big, lolloping Great Danes like E.Characias ‘Wulfenii’ - here at Sissinghurst
to the little runner, Euphorbia cyparissias, also thugish, but controllable if you don’t mind a bit of wild, here in Front Garden;
Another favourite is Heuchera, ‘Lime Marmelade’. We planted a couple of these at Calderstones in First Bed, and they provide lovely lifts of light in this shady place. But we need another 50 of them! (We call it First Bed, because it is the first bed visitors see as they walk towards the building from the car park. Like coming in the back way, up a ginnel, to a house).
Having got to Calderstones, let’s wander into the Theatre Garden, where we are creating The Nellist Border, in memory of my old university teacher, the Godfather of The Reader, Brian Nellist.
You can see Nellibobs in action on his You Tube channel, Nellibobs Friday Night, and if you want literary joy, profound seriousness, or total silliness (‘Biscuits’ is the one) that’s the place to go. In the link here he is reading ‘The Morning Watch’ by Henry Vaughan. It looks long but just read it aloud quite fast and you’ll feel the good of the garden beating in your blood. The end is hard to understand first off, so leave that for another time.
O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow’rs And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds! All the long hours Of night, and rest, Through the still shrouds Of sleep, and clouds, This dew fell on my breast; Oh, how it bloods And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings And hymning circulations the quick world Awakes and sings; The rising winds And falling springs, Birds, beasts, all things Adore him in their kinds. Thus all is hurl’d In sacred hymns and order, the great chime And symphony of nature. Prayer is The world in tune, A spirit voice, And vocal joys Whose echo is heav’n’s bliss. O let me climb When I lie down! The pious soul by night Is like a clouded star whose beams, though said To shed their light Under some cloud, Yet are above, And shine and move Beyond that misty shroud. So in my bed, That curtain’d grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide My lamp and life, both shall in thee abide.
I love the lines ‘Thus all is hurl’d/in sacred hymns and order, the great chime/and symphony of nature.’
It’s the ‘hurl’d’ that gets me. The great spirit of creation, known to humans in making gardens or art or poetry or music or loving those things. So much powerful energy in it.
And look at the huge oak tree in the photo below. We’ve recently removed two or three self-sown hollies that were growing up in the oak’s shadow, making it hard to see the magnificent structure of the great oak. Call me a tree-hugger but that tree is a sacred hymn, as the poet says, a form of order, a big instrument making its welcome sound in the symphony of nature. ‘O joys! Infinite sweetness!’
Top Row: K perfecting the pergola’s paving; P, watering, at the end of what looks like a string a fairy lights, but is Tulip'Ballerina'. They are perennial(ish) and we’ll add more next year.
Bottom Row: J and F mowing that huge lawn; Triumphant Volunteers, modelling the new 'we built it from scratch!!!' Pergola. We’ve planted some of our gifted David Austin roses to climb it.
Thanks to all our Reader’s Garden volunteers, and to readers who made a donation to the Nellist Border. You can still donate
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Not so Good in The Garden
Look back, dear Reader, to that first picture, the Golden Hop…and notice the privet behind it. That privet is sick. I had noticed it’s pastiness in Real Life, occasionally saying to myself must look at that privet, it’s not well. But when I saw it in the photo I realised it is much more sick than I had allowed myself to realised. A quick search tells me the most likely problem is Honey Fungus, and that I can tell if it is that by doing some scraping away at the plant. So, I’ll leave you now to do that before privet loses any more leaves.
But a parting shot, something Very Good in The Garden this week
Here’s a wonderful structural plant, Angelica Gigas, self sown from one I had bought as an experiment a couple of years ago. I think I bought it as a small plant in a 1 litre pot… but memory isn’t my strong point. I planted it in Front Garden Dark Bed, up near the house, where sunlight is available only before 7.00am. It still grew about two metres tall and became an astonishing space-age-sputnik-installation but it didn’t look right. Not enough space in Dark Bed. I’ve planted some airy white Thalictrums there now and they are coming on.
I thought the Angelica would look really good on the other side of Front Garden, in the Hot Border. I imagined a sort of hedge of them, their seeded blobheads twirling up into orbit in the space above the disintegrating ivy clad fence between me and my neighbour.
Then I was distracted by a million and one other things, forget to collect or sow seed and then forgot entirely about Angelica Gigas.
Until a month or so ago, when I noticed it growing in just the spot in Hot Border that I had imagined it growing. Not a hedge, just the one. But a lovely one, which will, with a bit of luck, seed itself. That hedge may yet materialise.
Thus all is hurl’d In sacred hymns and order, the great chime And symphony of nature.
Oh thank you for this, Jane. Really good to get that further thug properties review! And yes, that lime greeny yellow is fantastic. I planted a Euphorbia characias last year and it's doing precisely nothing. Fingers crossed it pulls away this year, or else its days are numbered.