After some misgivings and earnest discussions about the wisdom of such an undertaking, they said 'yes'. Dwelling in the past, as many older folk are wont to do, is generally inadvisable. It becomes an exercise in uncomfortable comparisons. But it can also be a reminder of the benefits of progress. Especially in the garden.
Never have we had so many plants to choose from: about 70,000 of them in the RHS Plant Finder. Neither have we had the benefit of so many 'garden designers' who can show us how to use them. In the early 1960s, only the exceptionally well-to-do, and those with country estates, would employ the likes of Russell Page and Lanning Roper to landscape their demesnes. Domestic gardens of modest size would settle for a rectangle of lawn surrounded by a narrow border filled with a limited range of summer flowers, with golden rod and shasta daisies predominating.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
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