I have always felt that the best gardens aspired to coppice and that the best woods have all the elements of the very best gardens.
Monty DonRead
Sweet peas should smell. Half the point of growing sweet peas is to cut them for the house; they should fill a room with an almost painful olfactory inarticulateness. But most sweet peas smell of nothing. This does not stop them being beautiful, but they are like food with no flavour.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sweet peas should have a strong fragrance, but many lack scent, making them less fulfilling despite their beauty.
In this quote, Monty Don reflects on the experience of growing sweet peas, emphasizing that their fragrance is an essential aspect of their appeal. While many varieties may lack the desirable scent, they remain visually stunning, drawing a parallel to the idea that beauty without deeper qualities, like flavor in food, can leave one feeling unfulfilled.
Themes
Sweet PeasFragranceBeautyGrowthNature
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used at a gardening workshop to discuss the importance of fragrance in flowers.
More from Monty Don
All quotes →I just think that gardening is about the future, a slow thing, that is deep and spiritual as well as spiritually rewarding.
Monty DonRead
Gardening is inevitably a process of constant, remorseless change. It is the constancy of that process that is so comforting, not any fixed moment.
Monty DonRead
I use the period between Christmas and New Year to potter about, think and completely change my mindset. In that easy no-man's-land between Boxing Day and New Year, loins are girded and mettle readied. It is time, as we voyagers bid farewell to the old year, to fare forward.
Monty DonRead
I am always more interested in people than plants. Nature doesn't make gardens, people make gardens. And the story of a garden is always the story of a person.
Monty DonRead
I have learnt that gardens are like happiness: you cannot pursue them as an absolute thing or moment.
Monty DonRead
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I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it's not a symphony at all. There's no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It's as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning its instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the music mess of it.
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That queen of secrecy, the violet.
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