Mandy's garden
A visit to a friend's garden was inspirational
Blown away by her amazing garden with multiple areas for vegetable growing, quiet corners with fruit trees, amazing perennial plants, surrounded by bird sound. Looking out over the neighbour’s vegetable patch, there are fields beyond with trees rimming the valley. The rock-built wall with moss-covered lower stones invites a rock garden. Behind me, a small pond rimmed with flag lilies and small pots containing sedums. A flash of brilliant purple in the border from tall, upright irises. Raucous starlings flit about stripping berries off bushes and scouring the lawns for invertebrates. To my left, an exuberant growth of honeysuckle buzzes with insects.
Petals drift from elderflowers,
Starlike perfect miniatures,
lay in the dark soil like jewels,
float on the puddles,
confetti of nature.
Tall and majestic,
the flaglily tempts a bumblebee
already laden with yellow pollen on her legs,
she dips her face in the inviting bloom
and takes what she can.
Dipsy with the sunshine,
unaccustomed to the heat,
distant pleasures reawakened,
the exuberance of youth remembered.
A plastic chair lies on its side,
forgotten and abandoned,
contrasts with neat and ordered vegetable rows,
no time to sit,
much digging to do.
A hoverfly before my eyes,
static then darts backwards,
returns perhaps to look at me
before disappearing.
Pebbles nestled in the moss,
arranged carefully, not random,
colours vary from grey to pearly white, to brick,
and on top, a crude little ceramic house,
perched precariously.