Sorry

Oh dear, I think I might have said the wrong thing. You know what it’s like with gardening, there are rules to follow if you want to command the respect of the self appointed guardians of good taste.

Many years ago my sister gave me some bulbs of a good form of Nerine she had growing in her garden north of Aberdeen. Every year they have increased in number and I now have a broad edging along both sides of about 12 feet of paved path. When they flower, as they are doing now, in mid October when everything else is winding down, they take no prisoners. A goodly clump of a scarlet Dahlia alongside them is all but overwhelmed and the combination of the two is a visual air raid siren. It’s an effect I’ve tried for elsewhere in the garden but nothing else has come close.

I was reading something the other day that damned begonias with faint praise. It would seem that they too are regarded as irredeemably naff by the GOGT. I love them. Dahlias seem to have crept back to a position of grudging acceptance, off the back of black leaved single flowered varieties I would guess. I grow plenty of dahlias, I even have one or two of the relatively shy flowering, dull foliaged single flowered black leaved varieties. Several of my Dahlias are doubles by the way.

And I have yellow flowers, and conifers. And I don’t really like most hardy geraniums, too scruffy, too dull and not much of a flower display for the space they take up.

For me, there is only one rule. Gardens should not be dull. I don’t give a rat's arse about the rest.