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WRITERS GROUP - JUNE - GARDENS
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Message 1.聽
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Sunday, 31st May 2009
The suggested topic is GARDENS, gardening, etc., looking forward to reading your contributions everyone.
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Message 2
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Sunday, 31st May 2009
Do you remember the song鈥n an English country garden?
It went something like this :
鈥淗ow many flowers do they grown, in an English country garden?
I鈥檒l tell you now of some that I know and those I miss you鈥檒l surely pardon鈥..
鈥nd it went on to list all the things you can find in a country garden.
There鈥檚 a lot more to gardens than things growing in them, Kew Gardens where you can step into another world comes to mind. Garden parties, has anyone ever been to a Royal Garden Party or know of someone who has? Bonfires and picnics, weddings, romance and well, the list goes on.
This should be a very interesting challenge, thanks for suggesting it, good luck.
Bisous,
Suepet. -
Message 3
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Sunday, 31st May 2009
We had a postage stamp of a garden until I was seven. Apart from seeing my mother on her hands and knees cutting the grass with a pair of grass-cutters, I don鈥檛 remember either of my parents ever being in it. There was usually a pram parked on the twelve foot long garden path, front door left open and the garden gate shut, for the latest baby to get a dose of fresh air.
I don鈥檛 know what the tiny house would have sounded like inside if we five children hadn鈥檛 had this safe bolt hole to escape to. Here noise new no limit, dirt was there for the taking and I could dig holes and make mud pies to my heart鈥檚 content. In fact it looked like a battle field, it WAS a battle field. My brothers and their friends dug trenches and shot each other with bows and arrows, guns, threw mud pies around to cries from my mother of 鈥淲atch my windows鈥 and 鈥淏ring those spoons back鈥.
It was never too cold, too wet or too anything to stop us from going out there. Snow meant 鈥淧ut your mitts on and take your wellies off when you come back in鈥. One Christmas my youngest brother got a wooden garage to play with. By Boxing Day it had disappeared. My mother searched everywhere and only after interrogation found that he and his best friend and dug a hole and buried it somewhere in the garden and it was now lost. The holes they made searching for it鈥ut it had gone.
I loved that square of muddy garden, for me it was not earth but sand, not a bucket of water but the sea, my mud pies were sandcastles and the crows and blackbirds seagulls as I played through my first six English summers dreaming of the sea-side and the day when dad would take us there. -
Message 4
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Very evocative, suepetal, and as the youngest of 4 children I recognise your description so well.
We lived in a tiny rented ground-floor flat (not a proper flat, just the downstairs rooms of a house!) and all of us children spent all of our free time in the back garden when we were little ones. Hours and hours I trundled up and down the path on my tricycle, and later took my first header off the bicycle too.
My parents didn't garden but a honeysuckle and roses grew up one side, courtesy of the elderly ladies next door, and the middle-aged couple on the other side grew peonies and other exotics. My dad would cut the grass with a manual not-very-good lawnmower and would also do the lawn for the elderly ladies; he would keep the front privet hedge trimmed for both houses too.
Our back garden had a large scruffy grass area (couldn't call it a lawn!) leading to a little hill at the end, a determined hollyhock and some sturdy irises, and us children (whatever the weather
It was our very own world.
I miss having my own garden now. -
Message 5
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:08 GMT, in reply to JoleBlon in message 4
Lovely, evocative descriptions of what "garden" meant - people and freedom, rather than plants. -
Message 6
Posted by dens canis (U1983532) on Monday, 1st June 2009
I just Googled the words for "In an English country garden". They suggest that common birds to be found there include cardinals and bobolinks, both American birds. The singer (and, I think, writer) was the American Jimmie Rodgers which perhaps explains the rose-tinted but slightly skewed picture it paints.
I'll get me gardening anorak. -
Message 7
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Suepetal, your piece brought back memories for me, too. And welcome, JoleBlon.
When I was ten, eleven or so the garden was a place of adventure and fantasy. We had dens in the big overgrown bushes, and there were apple trees, each with its own character and climbing 'degrees of difficulty.' I remember hiding in a tree when my adopted uncle came back from National Service and I went all shy.
One part of the garden was my imaginary stables, where up to a dozen horses were stabled; another part was where I dug and planted seeds 鈥揷ornflowers, mostly. My dad grew cabbages and cauliflowers, Brussels sprouts and runner beans - oh the happy hours I spent with the Flit gun.
Behind the garden was an orchard where Damsel, the retired carthorse, lived. We used to pet her and climb on her back. The farm dog, Sandy, would come over and play as well.
An interesting thing happened when I emptied out the budgie cage one time. By and by these strange and exotic weeds grew up, no one knew what they were -- innocent times , but luckily we kids didn鈥檛 do our pretend smoking (we used to roll up dock seeds in bits of paper) with these particular weeds.
But every Eden has a downside. Next door had an apple tree, and one day I was minded to pop over the fence and try some of them; I scrumped a couple and came home. That night on the telly Billy Graham burst into our lives, asking us to look into our hearts and see if we had sinned. For a long time I was convinced I鈥檇 go to Hell for stealing those apples.
I found this very battered photo of my best friend, Gloria, with Damsel the carthorse.
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Message 8
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:39 GMT, in reply to Josey in message 7
Oh, lovely, Josey.
What a "gardens of childhood" thread this is turning out to be. -
Message 9
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Monday, 1st June 2009
A lovely picture, I wish I could post one or two of the old photos taken 55 years ago with a box brownie, I鈥檇 send them off to my brother鈥檚 family to show them all how his big sister remembers him, what a mucky kid Mr Stats Inspector was, clarts and all.
Hello again everyone, especially dens canis and ,JoleBlon , welcome to the club. We are off to a good start with our garden memories, I confess to have had so many gardens in numerous houses I don鈥檛 know which to write about now. Perhaps a portrait of one of the French gardens near my home in Calvados might prove interesting; I shall put my thinking cap on. -
Message 10
Posted by Slightly-Foxed_a cat needs rehoming in Droitwich (U9332727) on Monday, 1st June 2009
This mentions plants, which is the nearest to gardens I can get. Finished it yesterday, while getting sunburnt on Walney.
A Walney Island Skylark
Exulting in the high miles of sun
Stacked above the dunes, upward, upward
鈥淎ll aboard, all aboard鈥, it twitters,
While, on the sea, the bright sun glitters,
Plunge, swash, backwash, of its longshore drift:
Even the wind turbines
On the horizon haze-line
Have an improbable Mediterranean feel,
Like painted scenery against the sky
In a Venetian opera.
Finished for now, song-exhausted
It flutters back to ground;
Somewhere among the waving grass
Ruffled by the wind like a green sea,
Alongside the blue sea,
Where the whoosh of the wind
beats the myriad seed heads
to a shimmer of silver,
Or momentary flash of burnished brass.
It drops, to the cool embrace of earth;
Somewhere among the scrubland, in the sand,
In the cool green gloom of gorse and grundsel
Lies its fragile offering,
A plaited plate of grass
Containing precious eggs,
Dull speckled jewels,
Or cloudy, polished pebbles,
each encasing next summer鈥檚 song of sun,
within the yellow essence of their yolks. -
Message 11
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Liking this very much, especially "the cool green gloom of gorse and grundsel" and the last two lines. Simply lovely. One for my son tomorrow.
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Message 12
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Like Sue, there have been many gardens in my life so it is difficult to settle on one. Two special favourites. Maybe the one from my childhood was the best.
We lived in a stone built house in an ancient town in the North Riding. The dale began on its outskirts, and encloses the river winding it's way past hamlets, farms, grey churches and tiny villages and on to the source near the border with Cumbria.
Our garden was sheltered with a wall around it, and beyond the wall on one sde was the primary school. Not a large garden barely big enough for a decent sized vegetable plot but my father mangaged to squeeze one in. In one corner were a couple of old apple trees and the best of all, a plum tree. My mother always had herbs near the back door and, under the kitchen window, her night scented stock.
There would be roses of course, father considered a garden a poor thing without them. Wallflowers, delphiniums, maybe lupins. We moved so many times it is difficult to recall what flowers belonged to this garden. But for me the plum tree was my refuge in summertime. Comfortable branches for sitting with a book or just dreaming dreams. And plums every second year to eat until one felt not quite well.
Solitude broken by an abrupt enquiry about why the onions had not been weeded or the dog walked. -
Message 13
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Monday, 1st June 2009
Country Garden
The other garden was different. It was a country garden and belonged to a cottage we were renovating, bought in an almost derelict state before the massive price rises of the last twenty years. Later our marriage broke down and the garden became at once solace to me, and millstone.
It had belonged to the head gardener on a local estate. Suffering years of neglect after his death when his wife tried but failed to manage it, the garden was like a poverty stricken lady, dressed in the rags of former grandeur.
There was a greenhouse and a potting shed, yew trees and a small apple orchard, an earth closet and even the remains of a pig sty. And I would have loved to keep a pig. There was a view across a vale which was like living next to a gallery of amazing pictures, as season followed season.
I did not have time to restore the garden completely, or even the money, and we had to sell the cottage as we went our different ways. But I had the glory of a final spring, with an array of spring flowers, a white lilac and magnolias and the apple blossom, followed by rioting summer flowerings. Especially blowsy peonies interlaced with Solomon鈥檚 seal, rose of Sharon, day lilies, old fashioned roses and delphiniums with vibrant deep blues which took my breath away. And rhubarb and gooseberries and strawberries and later the apples, including the oldest gnarled tree which produced the best dumpling apples for miles around. Or so I was told when strangers appeared to ask if I could spare just one. And they were right.
Oh, I should have robbed a bank and kept that garden.
Dl 1/6/09 漏 -
Message 14
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Monday, 1st June 2009
As always, it's a pleasure to read your lines Slightly, so visual with such great feeling.
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Message 15
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Monday, 1st June 2009
SJ, what a shame you couldn't have given him the cottage and kept the garden. We never really own the land but are its guardians for a short while. Cottages come and cottages fall into ruins but the land is there forever.
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Message 16
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Tuesday, 2nd June 2009
The second piece was an indulgence, Sue. The selling of that garden and cottage was, in the end, another road not taken. And I agree, no one owns the land, we are just guardians.
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Message 17
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Tuesday, 2nd June 2009
Mezidon Cannon, Calvados, France, twenty five years ago.
The old cottage stood century like by the side of the road leading to the Ch芒teau de Canon, a small hamlet where two villages, MEZIDON and CANON had joined together to make the town Mezidon Canon in Normandy.
I remember walking the hard earth lanes with my dog, on fine days, and in later years pushing my baby son in his pushchair, passing the chocolate box cottage and its lovely quaint garden as far as the chateau gates, turn to tour the lake and back to the village again to collect my daughter from school. A grand promenade of at least an hour if I took my time.
The Chateau was simple back then, I now and then acted as guide to the groups of ex soldiers who came to visit it each year on crowded buses after touring the landing beaches, Their memories of the chateau were very different from the way mine are now.t. .
However it is not the fine stately grounds I remember, it is that little cottage garden with the apple tree winding its way up and around the door, stumps being used as seats, holding plant pots, garden doco and the little calvados apples growing through the brickwork. The old lady who was always sitting outside hoping for a friendly conversation about her apple blossom or the vegetable plot as we drank cider and talked about the funny English visitors.
Go on, look it up on the website. I am sure you will find a lovely view of the house but I bet you won鈥檛 find that cottage or the little Normandy garden. -
Message 18
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Tuesday, 2nd June 2009
BLAST - sorry for all the typos, I have the wrong glasses on and my eyes are bad tonight....
after reading through again I think I WILL google and see if I can find a photo because I never took one myself. -
Message 19
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Wednesday, 3rd June 2009
You make me want to go and sip cider there, suepetal. Strange how such a peaceful location has such violent associations, as will soon be commemorated once more.
I'll be tackling some neglected house-removal plants at the end of the week, in hopes of salvaging the ones that mean most to me: a pot of lavender and a pot-grown hazelnut tree. The others were lovely too but don't have the same associations. If I can just keep those two and bring them successfully to this location, then I'll be more than satisfied.
The passing of time has thus refined and pruned my aims and intentions, from what would be desirable to what is necessary. They are never just "plants", are they, but memories of where, when, how and why we got them or came by them. From putting off doing this job I'm now looking forward to attempting it, even if I don't achieve what I'd like fully. -
Message 20
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Wednesday, 3rd June 2009
A Zen garden
A simple gravel rectangle
A kilo of white sand in a box
Seemingly random positioned rocks
A piece of miniature architecture or two
a little moss
A pruned tree
A dry landscape
A Buddist expression of cosmic beauty
Both abstract and symbolic
Healing, calming
A living work of art.
Unconsciously our perception of patterns
Contributes to enigmatic appeal
We are told. this is for the soul,
If you like that sort of thing, not me
Nearby there's a bell to ring and a candle
ding
ding
ding
Can you see the Christmas tree? -
Message 21
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Wednesday, 3rd June 2009
I did
When I explained Zen gardens to my son, he was very taken with the idea. I suspect there's a project in there *but* we've got a new rescue cat and she's very, very, very, very curious about everything, so I also suspect that it'd become a Zen playbox/litterbox/emptied box fairly quickly. -
Message 22
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Wednesday, 3rd June 2009
I suppose the cat could have a bell around her neck to ring while she was using the Zen sandbox.
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Message 23
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Wednesday, 3rd June 2009
Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:45 GMT, in reply to JoleBlon in message 21
Haiku for a Papaver Orientalis
A black universe
Of stamens, dusted with blue,
Wrapped in blood red silk. -
Message 24
Posted by Moonflower (U2267264) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
Ok,my first try at posting a poem here:
Magnolia Grandiflora
I always knew I would have a garden
with a magnolia tree
my mother disapproved of them 鈥 the mess
as thick satin petals browned and fell
she would have been forever sweeping them
no time to waste on a tree
which dressed with such careless untidiness
no time to spare, my hair kept boy-short
for speedy brushing
I did not worry, for I knew once adult
I would have my own garden
which trees could pattern with joyful scatter
I did not plan much sweeping
I wondered idly, could you pick
a single blossom and float it in a bowl,
like a waterlilly?
Now I am grown, deep rooted here
far from my birthplace
my house has no magnolia
the winters too insistent
winds too chill, bud biting frosts too frequent
my neighbours tree a poor stunted crone,
pale shadow of my childhood鈥檚 glossy showgirls
I wonder sometimes, could you pick
a single blossom and float it in a bowl,
like a waterlilly? -
Message 25
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
Lovely, Honeysuckle: I too love to see magnolia trees in bloom and I too had a mother who was "efficient" where "mess" was concerned.
There was one large fine magnolia in the old churchyard in which my primary school was located, and other people weren't fans - the waxy gleaming ivory cups had a horror for them! - but even today I stand and stare admiringly when I see one, and it reminds me of that first one each time. -
Message 26
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
Everyone here is hitting all the right notes about the flowers I admire most!
That's simply perfect, carrick-bend.
I noted in another thread (about gardening and slugs/snails) how I tried growing Blue Poppies. Carefully I followed the precise instructions: chilled seeds, nurtured the ones that sprouted, grew them on and planted them out surrounded by copper ... only for the local slugs/snails to treat them as a slime-by salad bar. Just copper and shiny trails next morning, shiny trails to match the tears on my face.
On visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens the other day, I photographed great swathes of Blue Poppies - so beautiful and untouched. -
Message 27
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
Snap! Honeysuckle , your mother sounds a bit like my mother, no time to waste on gardens with all the work to be done.
Yes you can pick flowers and float them in bowls, I have recently been to a flower decoration exhibition where the displays were so simple and made with flower heads and grasses. -
Message 28
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
Good idea carrick, time for another Haiku.
knee high grass and weeds
abandoned overgrown roses
flowers rot below
lost labour of love
needing summer and someone
with a gentle hand -
Message 29
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
JoleBlon, I have never been to the Royal Botanic Gardens, not that I can remember. Do you have a favourite park? Parks don't seem to be as important as they used to be. I just about grew up in our local park, what a shame we can't let our kids roam as we did.
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Message 30
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
I go to the Botanic Garden in Oxford a lot in winter when it is quiet and dormant. You can still find something to marvel at.
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Message 31
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Thursday, 4th June 2009
The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh is a gem of a place. And you're absolutely right, silverjenny, that these gardens and parks repay a visit at any time of year.
I photographed trees with astonishingly varied Autumn leaf colour, set against a clear bright blue sky: one tree had purple-brown leaves whilst its neighbour had yellow leaves. People peered up, as they passed, to see what I was trying to photograph, and then they remained staring too. Fantastic colours and shapes.
The cold wind in Winter threatened to remove our exposed skin but, again, the people who do the planting make sure that it's worth the visit. And the squirrels were keen enough to sit on my son's foot, because we were handing out nuts and they really wanted the free calories.
New leaves unfurling in delicate greens in Spring, and blossom and then that surprising growth spurt when Summer appears to arrive overnight. Lush greenery and flowers and buzzing insects galore.
All this, and specialised areas, like the Chinese gardens (the largest area of Chinese plants outside China, apparently), ponds, a waterfall, and superb alpines and rock gardens. And - the icing on the appropriate cake - a cafe where you get great views of the city below, after a reviving cuppa. It's a wonderful place altogether.
For open space there is Holyrood Park, with Arthur's Seat to climb and a wild moorland feel wherever you roam. The astonishing thing, when you're high up in Edinburgh, is how green the city appears, when you look out to see the iconic buildings.
I don't work for the City of Edinburgh, honest, but these are two miraculous places. -
Message 32
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Friday, 5th June 2009
I'm really enjoying this thread, so many interesting pieces.
Meanwhile I've had the hymn "Praise to the Holiest" going round in my head for a while and I wanted to write something.
And in the Garden
I would not have slept.
Would not have kicked off my sandals,
Laid my head on the rocky ground,
Made my robe comfortable
And slept.
I would not have slept
While my master, my friend,my guide
Cried to his Father
For the inevitable cup to be taken away -
Poured out his human agony.
No, I would have watched.
Watched the night with Him.
Felt the Path.
Foreseen the Cross.
Borne it for him.
I would have seen the raven,
Heard its call.
Have seen how the dawn comes
And small creatures wake
And a man points.
I would not have slept
In the garden
Below the hill
Under Heaven.
I would have watched
With Him. -
Message 33
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Friday, 5th June 2009
Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:56 GMT, in reply to Josey in message 32
That's umembellished, real mourning, Josey. I can't quite get the words right, and I'm an atheist now, but something in my Chapel upbringing has kicked in and made my eyes a bit red. -
Message 34
Posted by Dirigibles was here (U7278225) on Friday, 5th June 2009
Oh, Josey. That is wonderful, so moving.
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Message 35
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Friday, 5th June 2009
Thank you, both. I no longer "do" organised religion, and don't go along with conventional religious beliefs, but I am an admirer of Jesus the exemplar. I love the hymms and psalms though, church architecture, the Bible as literature, and the liturgy as language and ceremony. Does this make me a hypocrite? I hope not.
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Message 36
Posted by David K (U2221642) on Friday, 5th June 2009
Could I just add one of my favourite Kipling poems?
THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.
And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.
Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!
Rudyard Kipling -
Message 37
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Friday, 5th June 2009
Josey that was so unexpected, what a different idea for GARDEN, I never would have thought of it. Well done, I enjoyed it very much.
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Message 38
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Friday, 5th June 2009
David, lovely to hear from you again, I am afraid I work very very hard in my allotment but in my garden I am definitely one of the "Oh, how beautiful! and sitting in the shade" brigade.
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Message 39
Posted by Slightly-Foxed_a cat needs rehoming in Droitwich (U9332727) on Friday, 5th June 2009
We can't do gardens without the most obvious:
The Garden
by Andrew Marvell
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays ;
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-verg猫d shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid ;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.
No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green ;
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas, they know or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheresoe'er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.
When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat :
The gods who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow,
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings ;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate :
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.
How well the skillful gard'ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new ;
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run ;
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!
Mods - he's well dead (1678 IIRC) so he won't be round for his royalties, please let it stand. Thank you. -
Message 40
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Friday, 5th June 2009
So far so good Slightly...it's still there..
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Message 41
Posted by suepetal (U11727954) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Good morning everyone on this wet Saturday, good I don't have to water the garden again, weekend.
I shall go over later to do a bit of weeding and pick off the tomato plants, harvest the first corgettes and stawberries as well as collecting corriander basil and chives for the weekend.
I keep saying, if it rains I'll do the housework, but who cares about sweeping the floor when I can sweep garden paths even in thre rain.
Bisous
Suepet on Saturday -
Message 42
Posted by JoleBlon (U12091094) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Had a glorious day fossicking about with plants yesterday. Retrieved hazelnut tree, leggy lavender and a lemon balm. Hazelnut tree drastically pruned (risky, true, but it needed to fit in my friend's car!), lavender cuttings taken and original repotted, and lemon balm halved with friend. Friend's garden has now acquired two roses, a jasmine (much reduced), blackthorn, aquilegia (sp?), buddleia cutting and such like, by way of thanks for the great help.
We laughed through the shower of rain, wrestled with solid pot-bound rootballs and had a thoroughly good, productive day. The backs of my legs are complaining today and I managed to squash my thumb between two fancy planters (blood everywhere but I ignored it and carried on): nevertheless, I feel so happy at having achieved what I wanted and more. New memories to add to the stock of the old associations with lovely growing things. G M Hopkins had it right: "When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush". -
Message 43
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
With all this talk of gerdening I remembered a pome I did here ages ago. Hope you don't mind if I repost it.
Nettle
So, you have forgotten me, my dear,
all this long winter, when the ground is frozen
and I am dead, perhaps.
But I have not forgotten you.
I remember how we fought,
how you cut and slashed; how I bit back.
You said I hurt, you would be rid of me.
Have you forgotten?
Then, to each their own patch.
I would be behind the wall -
A misbegotten spot, but even so -
Peace and room enough for all.
You said. Then you came again
With your poison and the pain.
But I am not dead, merely sleeping, cogitating, germinating,
in the dark underground place that you fear,
that you would not face for anything.
But I love the dark, the succulent dark
of the deep under-earth,
The worm, root, stone, fibre and bone
and man鈥檚 detritus, man鈥檚 mishaps
the old stuff of my birth.
Oh I am not dead, merely sleeping, vegetating, contemplating,
In the black beneath.
You have forgotten me, my lovely,
Under those winter skies.
You have forgotten that what has lived
never truly dies.
And spring is coming, and my shoots rush
towards the air. Look closely.
See where they push?
Oh I am not dead. I am rising
and my sharp sting is waking. -
Message 44
Posted by Slightly-Foxed_a cat needs rehoming in Droitwich (U9332727) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Well, there are many, many texts of Marvell on the interweb, so if they take this one down they are fighting a losing battle.
A green thought in a green shade is the bit that always gets me.
Also of course the incipient Neo-Platonism in the lines about the soul flying up to the boughs
I really would have liked to put the opening to Burnt Norton alongside it but of course that is well and truly in copyright. Looking forward to the programme on ELiot tonight but Debbie wants to watch England v Kazakhstan, so a battle over the remote which ends up with me checking into the battered husband's refuge is likely to ensue -
Message 45
Posted by Dirigibles was here (U7278225) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Josey - that's so clever. Didn't see it first time round. Beastly things are getting taller by the day, grrrrr.
-
Message 46
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Josey, I am glad you retrieved this one. Some wonderful imagary in there in honour of a mixed blessing.
But I am not dead, merely sleeping, cogitating, germinating,
in the dark underground place that you fear,聽 -
Message 47
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Slightly Foxed, could we start another thread to discuss poetry. So much around with the 主播大秀 season reminding us of our favourites. Or even those we can't get to grips with, in my case.
-
Message 48
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Oh, that's a good idea, SJ, then we can talk about our fav stuff and keep it separate from our efforts here! Why don't you start a thread -I'll be back later.
-
Message 49
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Josey, done that. Watch it sink quietly down the mayo with me splashing at the helm!
-
Message 50
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Slightly Foxed, can we take Marvel to the poetry corner. I would love to hear your thoughts on Marvel and Eliot in TVH.
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