One thing I love about aristocratic Brits - and historically, there's a lot to not love - is the way they say purple. I don't know how to write it phonetically... puh'pull, maybe? I mention this because a fellow gardener lent me her tapes of the columns of Vita Sackville-West, the English poet, novelist, gardener and outrageous character who was, in some circles, as famous for her affair with Virginia Woolf as she was for her gardens at Sissinghurst Castle and her gardening columns for the London Observer. She wrote her weekly column beginning in 1947, and several times she mentions puh'pull irises and crocuses. Every time it makes me smile.
Janet McTeer reads the columns and she's the perfect one to do so. An acclaimed actress, she's actually played the part of Sackville-West on BBC-TV. She has it nailed. The tapes I'm listening to are called "In Your Garden Again," one of a series of four sets, I think, that are available on Amazon.com for between $17 and $27.
When my friend first suggested I listen to these tapes in my car, I protested. I don't drive enough to listen to books-on-tape. But she persisted. And while I don't drive long distances too often, I seem to drive quite a lot in dribs and drabs. Believe me. Listening to Vita Sackville-West's musings about her castle garden month by month more than a half-century ago is really entertaining.
Take, for example, her distaste for two popular roses at the time - American Pillar and Dorothy Perkins, both ramblers that are very vigorous, pretty disease-free and producers of immense clusters of small pink flowers. Sackville-West calls them her "arch enemies" in the rose garden and opines that they should be banned forever!
She much prefers Felicite et Perpetua, an old garden rose, which means it's been in cultivation since before 1867. Unlike the ones she dislikes, this climber is extremely fragrant. I'm with her on this. So many roses are lovely to look at, but one with a sweet fragrance wins me over every time.
Sackville-West - who, despite her many affairs, supposedly had a passionate and happy marriage - goes on about winter aconite and tiny crocuses and the many letters her Observer columns generate. Part of the charm of these tapes is remembering what it was like, even in my lifetime, to get hand-written letters from readers.
Another thing this little interlude has done is remind me of the power of audio, and how much fun it is to listen while driving to a period piece so erudite and quirky, the aggravations of driving in Philadelphia seem to melt away.
Must be the power of puh'pull.
