News: September 2003

In this months issue of The Garden, the monthly membership magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Hugh Johnson expresses his refreshing viewpoint on garden "weeds".

In his regular section 'Tradescant's Diary', Johnson writes;

"Wild flowers and garden flowers are polarised in most gardeners' minds. We are trained by horticultural convention, and certainly by nurseries, to regard plants as either being proper for gardens or pretty much weeds.

But what an absurd idea this is. The beauty this book [Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland] describes and demonstrates may have less raw horsepower than an azalea at full throttle, but it is no less the essence of what gardening is for: the enjoyment of nature's designs. The more you study the ancestral links between the wild and garden forms of plants the more you appreciate both."

Say no more!

Hugh Johnson. 2003. Tradescant's Diary. In The Garden the membership magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society. September 2003, Volume 128, part 9.