Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Eleanor Perenyi on mint

Photo credit: Gogo

Eleanor Perenyi wrote about her gardens in a way that commanded respect. Many of us worship at the shrine of her collected garden essays, Green Thoughts (1981), and I felt a personal pang at the passing of the author in May.

Margalit Fox captured her well in a delicate New York Times obituary. My own memorial to Baroness Perenyi will be a series of excerpts from Green Thoughts.

Here she speaks about her mint bed:

Every garden should have an area that can safely be neglected, and a mint bed is the ideal choice. My unknown mints, fenced in with old boards, get no attention beyond a shovelful of compost now and then. They never have a shadow of a pest or a blight. Once a summer I get down on my knees and trace the stolons that have escaped the fence, ripping them from their moorings and throwing them on the compost heap. As gardening jobs go, this one is a delight. The heavenly smell invades every pore, and if I were the size of a cat I would roll luxuriously in the pile of discards.


To leave a comment, click on the word COMMENTS below

No comments:

Post a Comment