Vita Sackville-West

This is a portrait of the English author and poet, Vita-Sackville West, who lived from 1892-1962. She is famous for her unconventional lifestyle on the fringes of the Bloomesbury Group. But to serious gardeners around the world, she is known for the Sissinghurst Castle garden, where she designed her famous garden "rooms." She also wrote a weekly garden column for The Observer, just like a British Henry Mitchell, who wrote the wonderful Washington Post "Earthman" column. Although Henry's writing style was more humorous and ironic, and Vita sounds bossier. This comes naturally to an English aristocrat. Here is what she says about the final fall clean up:


"If it is true that one of the greatest pleasures of gardening lies in looking forward, then the planning of next year's beds and borders must be one of the most agreeable occupations in the gardener's calendar. This should make October and November particularly pleasant months, for then we may begin to clear our borders, to cut down those sodden and untidy stalks, to dig up and increase our plants, and to move them to other positions where they will show up to greater effect. People who are not gardeners always say that the bare beds of winter are uninteresting; gardeners know better, and take even a certain pleasure in the neatness of the newly dug, bare, brown earth."


Oh well. I don't know about November being a "particularly pleasant month" in the Northwest. But I suppose if you had a garden staff to order around, and servants bowing and tugging their caps it would be more fun. Anyway, I have enough "sodden and untidy stalks" to keep Vita's gardeners busy for a long time. But I agree, there is something about that final tidy up that's almost as satisfying as the first spring work. Maybe it has more to do with the promise of rest?