July 2024
Winter in the greenhouse
allows the Agapanthus
to reach great heights
and flower extravagantly.
June
Lying on my day bed
to read,
looking up
the starry flowers astound
Thank you Hoya
May
Pale yellow iris
plus swishing and gurgling.
In gentle spring weather,
water and warmth are summoned.
April 2024
March 2024
Always sad to see a tree die
Last year no fruit and now gone.
Why?
Soil too alkaline?
Too crowded by others?
Goodbye Arbutus unedo.
February 2024
Low sun sparkles on hellebores.
Each year they come back,
and each year a surprise.
Such rich colours on a cold February day.
January
Proliferating purple
promises plentiful provisions
December 2023
So mild a year
and then a sudden snap
of cold.
The Hydrangea seemannii huddle undercover.
November
The first light frost
reveals spidery activity
around the pond.
October
A late autumn
suddenly brings reds and golds
in abundance.
September
Apples expanding
alarmingly.
Kidd’s Orange Red
already ripe and juicy
August
The new shed completed,
and tips its hat to
the Marjorelle Gardens
in late summer sun.
July 2023
A plant branches out
A washing line obliges
Plenty of cucumbers follow.
June 2023
Abundance from autumn sowing.
A joy for many meals,
then –
Beans again!
May
Peony and cornus
both respendent in endless sunshine.
The garden thirsts,
yet the peony is called ‘singing in the rain’.
April
Flowering activity
everywhere,
red tulips
shout the loudest.
March
The winter border
flourishing
with hellebores
stretching into spring
February
Twenty five fish
minus
twenty three fish
equals
one heron
January
Delicate frosting and shoots of promise.
The garden never really sleeps
that is just me, too tired to layer up,
so I pretend it is resting.
December 2022
The pond maintains an ice gap
through water movement,
and a tennis ball turning slowly,
towards the Solstice
November
An eerily warm November.
But the leaves colour and fall
saying, Yes it is autumn
October
Not-so-hardy trees
brought inside for protection.
Now the perfume of orange blossom
fills the greenhouse.
September
Sunflowers planted late
catch up with the season,
heavy with seeding
they struggle to track the sun.
August
A new bed extracted from the parched lawn where irises,
thinned out and moved from a shady corner, can sunbathe.
Next spring some flowers perhaps.
July
Glistening bounty
hides from the blackbirds,
for now.
June
A peony called peace
as easily buffeted as peace in the world
but for a moment held in beauty.
May
Past the night of a dark moon
sumptuous apple blossom swept away by wind,
now blue rules the garden for a time
April
Colour springs forth,
it braves the wind
and sets the world abuzzing.
March
Some come unbidden,
we relish their beauty
and their agency
Others we help,
so much promise,
so much hope.
February
Hellebores continue their gentle welcome
to both low angled sun
and occasional frost.
January
Frost sparkled grass and dormant seeds
then snowdrops followed by hellebores
pushing through a dressing of compost and fallen leaves
burnished by winter sun and icy winds.