garden leaks – Page 7 – Vienna Solsort

2014-06-272014-06-27

magpie rhetoric

A green tangle of lily leaves with eight buds in different stages. The flowers are white so the buds get paler as they get closer to opening. On one just opening flower sit two flies, one quite delicate the other chunky with a glistening green thorax. — tangled lilies

Dawn chorus, even to my ears, has been hijacked,

corvid chorus being the more appropriate discription,

harsh, with the occasional plaintive

interruptions of small sorts and short sharp bursts

of magpie rhetoric; to this a warming sun hauls

a lazy fireball into a colourless sky

clear of cloudy interruption, quickening blue

in glorious promise. Sudden silence prompts

my own progress into this new day as I reach

for pen and paper, my own morning exercise

routine to trace out the tiny details of green

abundance, to record the gentle solace of

order in chaos, and the surprising chaos

in the gentle order of manicured tangle

that it daily pleases me to call my garden.

2014-06-232014-06-24

garden larder

Bug house made with wood, bricks, fircones, logs and hollow stems arranged in layers. The waterproof roof is a shelf for small terracotta pots and the whole thing hides between ferns, lily-of-the-valley and laurel hedge — Bug house or larder?

They alight in unison, fluff and without pause

or hesitation, the fledgling, still eager for

treats, begs; and the male, the skinny and bedraggled

parent bird, leaps away to forage in the hedge.

Brown, softly speckled, unlike the orange-beaked, black

adult, the juvenile yo-yos between the urge

to preen new feathers, or open the prodigious

yellow gape and wait impatiently for service.

They tweet each other and multi-tasking, the young

bird topples, takes alarmed flight, swiftly followed by

screeching parent with tell-tale empty, grubby beak.

2014-06-202014-06-21

peony path

a curved gravel path lined with spent peopnies and and pointy box cones

The peony path is lined with an avenue of box cones.

Cones that lean, windswept in higgledy piggledy directions

give shape in the winter landscape when the peony retreats

underground; cones that shelter the peony from frosted snow,

hide its ability to power out of the earth red shoots

that erupt in bold green hand-spans and spectacular scarlet

blossoms. Right now the peony path is a carpet of red

dashed to the ground by wind and rain leaving three-pod seed cases,

orange and hairy, like strange-plant versions of Orang utan

Pongo Abelii, exotic in cool northern summers,

arching away from their roots and bowing low to the earth.

2014-06-162014-06-22

lost hosta

badly chewed hosta leaves with strong purple highlights against a black background — haunted hosta

I have lilies, or rather I have amazing long strong stems,

with bustling lengths of elongated, yet broad, neatly tipped leaves

topped by clusters of fat buds I watch hawk-like for holes or worse

And worse rears it’s ugly prospect in the shape of two humping

lily-beetles; candy-red demons oblivious to my

vigilance. The weapon of mass destruction comes easily

to hand, the beetles tumble put of sight, their usual trick.

And I survey my stumpy spikes of lost hosta, lacy pale

remnant of munched brunnera, chewed to the ground memory of

lupins whose fabulous foliage never once stood a chance;

fritillaries, glaucous green promises stripped naked,

and I have no regrets. Enough is enough. The war is on.

2014-06-13

Like a lizard, I sit soaking the heat
protected by the feasting green
of jungle and the factor fifty that
glistens on my more fragile skin.
The heat prickles on my surface and creeps
slowly into my winter-cold bones. I
listen gratefully past my tinnitus
to the merciful strands of birdsong
that hang just above the fence, but far
below the watching crows; and I watch
a small world of miniature monsters
conducting their own fragile ecology
in the semi-alien environment
of my jungle, eating and breeding on
my treasures; eating and breeding on each other.

2014-06-09

seed story

I found a packet of seeds, forgotten under a pile
of unwanted post. Initial disappointment displaced
by curiosity, I checked the sow-before date and
could hardly believe my good fortune. I know I purchased
too early, had such trouble restraining the urge to
get started months ago, but there is still time
and two years before they might no longer be viable.
Tomorrow I shall clear a fine tilth bed for them. I can
hardly resist the urge to creep out in the dark to
prepare; one packet contains one thousand seeds;
imagine the miracle concealed. More impressive
than prayer on a pinhead, a starter pack and all the
information needed to inform the production of

a glory of digitalis purpurea alba,
all this times one thousand, in a tiny silver packet.

2014-06-062014-06-08

star plant

single head of white cup-shaped astrantia bloom seen against a background of bright green shuttlecock fern and deep shade — astrantia

I kneel before my green jungle
amazed that all this spring rain has
rebirthed plants I imagined dead.
Intricate Mandelbrot workings
lace a verdant tapestry of
hope, planted, each one, with eager
expectation of perennial
visits, green shoot reminders of
days in the sun. Pushing its way
through new spring brunnera is the
delicate fern that failed to thrive
two, three years past. Lone clematis
my last best hope for success, now
racing its way skyward from the
bare brown earth of its premature
dying in that summer drought.
And astrantia, brilliant
sight between dark arches of
Solomon’s Seal and a fine pale
shuttlecock fern, it lives and with it
my hope and imagination.

2014-06-032014-06-13

gardening leave

: late ferns

I take a break, hazelnut coffee hot

wafting, but not obliterating the

strong aroma of chopped ivy that

clings to my hair and clothes, stains green on the

ancient shears, now propped in the porch while I

unravel before the howling women

of Roland Garros. The orange court bright,

garish on my screen, hosts the world’s richest

sports-woman, pretty in pink, on her way

to more kudos and cash as a sound guy

struggles, one two, one two, in the cold

and French mumbles the score. My eyes seek out

the restful green of my rampant garden

my ears strain past the thwack and grunt, for

rustle of bamboo, the patter of rain.

I take a break, but my focus remains

outside. And all of us waiting on sun.