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April's the busy month, the month that grows... (poem)

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) was an English garden writer, and she wrote the following poem. It celebrates how easy and satisfying she thought it was to grow annual flowers from seeds.

April's the busy month, the month that grows

Faster than hand can follow at its task;

No time to relish and no time to bask,

(Though when indeed is that the gardener's lot,

However large, however small his plot?)

April's the month for pruning of the rose,

April's the month when the good gardener sows

More annuals for summer, cheap and quick,

Yet always sows too thick

From penny packets scattered on a patch

With here a batch of poppy, there a batch

Of the low candytuft or scabious tall

That country children call

Pincushions, with their gift

Of accurate observance and their swift

Naming more vivid than the botanist.

So the good gardener will sow his drift

Of larkspur and for-get- me- not

To fill blank space, or recklessly to pick;

And gay nasturtiums writhing up a fence

Splotching with mock sunlight sunless days

When latening summer brings the usual mist.

He is a millionaire for a few pence

Squandering Nature in her gift, exceeds

Even her own demands.



This poem and others are available in the Royal Horticultural Treasury of Garden Verse.

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