On Wed, 6 May 2009 beccabunga wrote:

Lily of the Valley is picky about where it settles, and I tend to leave
it be. If it interferes with something else, then hefty digging out of
roots is the only solution I have found - and it immediately sits up
and says "Thanks - lovely soft bed for me".

I, too, have had Lily of the Valley. In some gardens it thrives, in
others it dies. Haven't found out why.

In the garden in front of our house in Normandy it thrives in spite of
the fact that there is little depth of earth and the builders left it a
year or so ago in a pile of rubble. But it won't grow here in Reading.

Another plant that seems to be temperamental is Japanese Wineberry. It
will grow anywhere I put it in England but I cannot get it to take in
Normandy despite several attempts. And I particularly like the
Wineberry, not because of its beauty but because it is a kind of family
heirloom. What I've got at the moment is descended from a layer taken
from an uncle's garden back in the 1920s.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://www.mesnil.demon.co.uk