Life must be filled up

This time of year I'm so keen on watching my special plants that I tend to forget that laurel has flowers and that en masse they are rather spectacular. Laurels have a bad name, forever associated with Victorian suburban respectability and aspidistras. I don't hate them myself and they make useful screens. Now that we have clean air, no one should refer to them disparagingly as 'sooty'.





Later in the year they have black berries, poisonous to us but not to birds, which then distribute them in a rather disgusting manner.