Greening the cracks

Daphne's post got me thinking about lily of the valley, one of a group of woodland-glade plants that do surprisingly badly in my garden. Like columbines, foxgloves and campions, I plant, they sulk, they die. A shame as I find them utterly charming. Some folk have them growing like weeds. Indeed, this is one of the fresh delights caused by the detours I have to make round the building site: the cracks in the pavement outside one house are lined by lilies of the valley, all in bloom. I am suffused with envy. A few doors down from me a clump of Japanese anemones are doing similar. All I can manage is some groundsel and willow herbs. I'm tempted to cheat and resort to seeding the area with marjorams and wallflowers.

I do better by the cracks between the house and the path, which are currently seething with valerians, dog violets and marjoram. I had to grub out the teasels and sycamores. And the cypress seedling that I found by the back door. Commonsense tells me that I should remove the seedling dogwood from the base of the fencepost but it has such good colour in its young stems I couldn't do it. Perhaps later in the year when I'm feeling ruthless.

It obviously runs in the family: I noticed that my parents have got a fine crop of wallflowers and snapdragons lining their foundations, interspersed with seedlings of the little dark Viola labradorica. As we were admiring this accidental planting I noticed something different.

"Isn't that a hollyhock?" I asked.

"Is it? It'll make a change from cherry trees."