Self-seeders can be a delight - or a task for Roundup

摘要

They're gone now, every last one. Grubbed up to make way for a gravel garden, which the new owners of a nearby house have unimaginatively filled with phormiums, Choisya ternata Sundance, 'statement' stones and lines of lavender either side of the drive. But only two years ago the same space was graced by Helleborus niger, the Christmas rose, in abundance. Here it truly did bloom on or around the date dictated by its popular name (there are several forms that will usually comply). After eating at lunchtime on the 25th, it is my habit to walk briskly round the neighbourhood, and the sight of these clumps, luminously white in the fading light, always brought cheer. Whereas the presence in shops, a few days before Christmas, of those 'celebration baskets' in which a gaudy polyanthus, an overbred Cyclamen persicum, a winter-flowering azalea and a young Kentia palm (Howea forsteriana) are shoved together in a short-lived, expendable melange, deserves a seasonal sneer.