The bones

of a garden

I have two and a half bales of peastraw waiting to be put in the garden. I see them from the window where my desk looks out on to the garden. They are a gentle reminder of things I need to do in the garden. I sit and watch sparrows feasting on the bales. I suspect they are picking out the pea seeds that have softened with the rain and now in these fast cooling days provides sustainance in a garden that is retreating and offering less and less as winter rises up and climbs into the flower beds. In an absent thought I think how cruel it is to take food sources away as things become colder and less kind in the garden. I see the value of leaving seed heads of perennials that are now shedding their summer skins. I still have much to do in the garden but I make a note to self to let the skeletons of summer stand. The seed heads a form of offering to the birds.

The garden has crossed over that point that unless it is a very sunny day, the day just feels too cold and too short. We have had perhaps, too many, unseasonable warm days, which has seen the bees start to eat their winter stores, a worrying thing as they, like the birds, have fewer means to replenish them from the unfolding autumn. Without sun in the garden, it is colder. A mud appears from no where and encrusts my gumboots. It seems to be everywhere. If I garden I have become selective about my hours. Not too early to avoid the wet air that numbs my fingers. Not too late or I find myself surrounded by a chilling air. I love nothing more than to be working in the garden whilst being warmed by the sun. There is still green amongst the flowerbeds but the autumns tones of gold and amber are starting to fade as leaves that once clung to branches fall in the last dancing motion of the season. The trees stand bare. The bones of the garden are revealed.

Flowers are fewer to find in the garden. I discover a tree dahlia that I planted has finally flowered. It is one of the very last gasps of colour. The chrysanthemums are rioting away thank goodness but the layered tapestry of flowers which seems to be my gardening style is gone. The pea straw that I have managed to get out into the flower beds, the ones that I have worked over, weeded and composted is often upturned and spread about the lawn and paths that I had only recently rediscovered. These paths were hidden with summer growth and were only found again, after I chopped back and weeded the beds that surround them. The birds hunt out the chunks of compost that are rich in insects and bugs and microbes so tiny I cannot see them. Little seed heads begin to sprout in the soil and I sigh that gardener’s sigh of knowing that the job is never done or finished, that there is always work to do. The birds root out the Ranunculus corns I planted and so I put them elsewhere and set up a weird protection system so that they are safe from curious beaks.

I look at the garden and feel like a beginner. It is messy and half done and gives no hint of what it is in the summer. It is hard not to feel despondent but I suspect that feeling might perhaps be just as much about the week of bad sleep than the garden itself. For if I look a bit deeper I can see the sprouting daffodils shoots of the many bulbs that I have planted up in pots. There is a hellebore flowering, early. Its rich crimson blooms huddle together like a group of gossips. I even find a few spears of asparagus heads trying to emerge from the soil. I dump some compost on them and tell them to wait a bit, it is too early. There is also a promise in my hand in the form of antique terracotta pansy violas that I brought from Grey Floral. A promise of spring that I will carefully put into pots and watch and wait until they become bigger plants before putting them in the cool soil. Yes the garden is bare. Yes it is a cold place to be in sometimes and yes there is much work to be done. But that is life. We have seasons of cold and bareness and I think it is the bones of who we are, like my garden, that shine through. If we look hard enough we will find the hellebores and the daffodils and we will hold in our hands the promise of flowering pansy in days to come. There is still a feast to be had, we just need to be a bit like the birds and hunt it out in corners that perhaps we have not looked in a while.