Category: garden leaks

Exploring the idea that ‘you are how you garden’

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weeds

green layers, the forground being solomons seal, complete with water droplets and a row of small white flowers hanging in a neat row and the light golden green fern it grows beside. In the background my own Chelsea treasure, a dark green frothy-looking fern that grows about 1 metre high.
Chelsea memory

There are bald patches in my garden

while I am awaiting delivery

of seed and plug plants chosen, with care,

from the electronic garden centres

that allow me access to more than my

local, parochial, offerings.

Watching Chelsea Flower Show, I see

my choices recurring in show medal

gardens, ponder the process whereby

this information, this fashion, travels

like weeds through the tastes of gardeners

everywhere, linked through the media,

through tv, through blogging and Twitter.

And even as I write, they arrive,

treasures beautifully boxed, happy

plants. I ignore the drizzle to find

fork and trowel, to dig holes and to plant.

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wing-weaving

looking through bright green fern fronds, interwoven with solomons seal - you can just see the little rows of white flower droplets, but the water droplets don't really show up
green shower

Languid, lazy, the heavy-laden

air abandons its moisture content

on the lush spring-greenness of magic

jungle – daily, hourly transforming

brown, woody skeletons into soft

adventure playgrounds where blackbirds and

sparrows, wrens and bluetits wing-weave through

showers of dripping foliage with

keen delight, watched by a curious

robin, alert on the garden chair

and me, in the ugly mac; grey-green

disguise betrayed only by laughter.

 

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glee

side view of the pale teak Lutyens style bench against a white wall - book ended by spikey iris leaves.
legal wood
I have neglected to mention the new bench,
complete with a ‘legal wood’ tag it arrived
spot on new time; pale Indonesian teak
carefully packed, in sections, waiting to be
assembled. A packet of dowels, some screws
and a couple of bolts had also made the
journey, while I supplied hammer, screwdriver
allen key and muscle power. The heavy
wood was a challenge and the blackbirds screamed at
my huffing and puffing; disappeared when I
tackled the packaging for recycling, so
I sat majestically alone with my
green tea and my now gleeful satisfaction.
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hosta challenge

between the trunks of two laurels sits a bug hotel. Made of brick, wood, fir cones, logs and various hollow canes the bug hotel has old broken terracotta pots on top and a large leaved hosta infront.
bug hotel and hosta
A broken Long Tom laid
under the laurel hedge
was intended shelter
for creeping, crawling things
but when that twiggy branch
obscured its opening
the bluetits showed every
intention of moving in.
The birds are keen to share,
to harvest, the guests I 
encourage into bug
hotels, demolishing
any structure not fixed
securely into place.
Keen also to adapt
anywhere not bird-house,
to challenge my thinking;
artists in their own right.

 

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camera fatsia

newly unfurled fatsia leaves, pale green against the darker green background, remind me of security cameras...
360 security

I have a motley of black and brown

hooligans stomping through my garden
uprooting small plants and creating
havoc. Egging each other on, they
toss things about in a determined
silence and a high state of alert.
Perched on the rim of an empty pot
a juvenile, newly fledged, incites
the parent pair to greater effort
with urgent, fluent, body language
that brings an amused smile to my face.
A determination to retain 
the big mature hedging that is host
to a variety of nests, negates
the effort of maintenance for this
mini ecosystem that brings such
reality, such delight, to my garden.
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anticipation

bright blue sky with red cloud on the horizon and a gentle hint of gold in the bottom left corner
red morning waiting
The bench arrival has been
postponed. I ordered from a
website that did look ok
and they have warned me of the
delay, but disappointment
fringes my hopes and caution
hems my imagination.
The empty space accuses
me while I hover with my
morning tea and I take in
a different perspective
catching sight of the bluebells
creeping now towards the gap.
Creeping from the woody shade
of beech and laurel, into
dry heat of the mosaic path
passing the kitchen window.
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silent protest

a self-seeded bluebell among stones, grasses, nigella and primrose leaves, the upright stem spearing up from a splayed base of strappy bluebell leaves
silent percussion
Gold frosts the morning; pale
yellow primrose faint, weak,
lacking turgor pressure,
but still smiling towards
the sun. And hellebores
too lay their blossom on the
ground, but in a huddle
as if caught by surprise,
faces shyly out of
sight. But bluebell, made of
sterner stuff, lance towards
the frosty air, dangling
their silent percussion
in jaunty defiance.
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baggeson’s gold companion

fiddleheads, the emerging croziers of a black 'hairy' stemmed fern, looking a lttle like shy meercats
shy of meercat
Meercat alert, tips of honeysuckle
peer attentive, curious, from above
the lilac breaking green, faintly purple
even, bursting into springtime raiment.
Winding ways up the ancient ivy-clad
trunk, the honeysuckle gathers and clumps
before stretching out long slim necks in search
of further destinations, there it waits
as the lilac swells heavy purple blooms
among bountiful heart shaped leaves.
The honeysuckle, greening early, turns
it’s pointy snout with the breeze, just biding
time until the blousy lilac, the red
peonies, confetti the waiting ground;
ostentation nose-diving while wiry
tenacity holds the honeysuckle
bloom longer further from its origins
as companion to baggeson’s gold.
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fractal

bare branches and red palmate leaves against a white wall; iris leaf spears and purple blossom peep between the branches
spring skeeter

Tomato stain smudged on pristine cloth

sun blushes mild red through the whiteout,
singular evidence that the world
does not end at the bottom of my
garden and grounds for hope that the day
might reveal blue sky in time for the
morning green tea ritual; taken
these days gazing at the empty space
where the new bench will settle into
it’s own. Even as I write, treetops
emerge from the mist, still skeleton;
but, closer to the house, Skeeters Broom
uncurls blood red fingers nudging at
the gap. Nothing waits, the table is
laid, consumed, relaid; the morning tea
fractal
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lost form

one end of a now backless garden seat is visible against a green and cream strappy phormeum. On the bench are two baskets, one cane, one wirework. In the wirework basket are four pots containing emerging lilies.
backless
I’ve ordered a new garden bench,
the old one has slowly lost form;
it’s patched and faded wood crumbles
under scaly layers of paint
while the backrest sidles away.
Gluing and screwing no longer
maintains its functionality
though it still looks ok with a
basket of bulbs perched on the seat.
But the new one will bring back some
dignity to the sunny spot
just under the kitchen window.