For years I have been an amateur horticulturalist… Yeah, right… Maybe ‘gardener’ is more to the point and maybe, if I asked my husband and grandsons who do all the actual ‘work’, they’d have another errr name for me…. Careful now boys, I am the one making lunch.
Okay…I am a supervisor.
I love the aesthetics of a well-planned garden and in the past worked very hard, on hands and knees to create my visions. Now I can gaze at clumps ablaze with spring perennials poking their way up out of the frozen earth to give colour to the snow. Bushes, blooming with all shades of green buds, usher in the warmer climes at a time when we need it most. Annuals bordering tall grasses, swaying in the warm breezes of an early spring. I love it all.
Carefully garden ornaments and focal points are removed from the sheds. Hours are spent cleaning and polishing, after a long winter’s respite. Gently they are put back into their places in the young, but growing daily, landscape. The children smell the hyacinths and fragrant lilacs knowing from experience which scent and which do not. They’ve been taught to eat from the garden too, but not yet. That will come further into the summer when they will steal a raspberry, blackberry or cherry tomato, popping them into their mouths as they play in the back garden.
We used to have a glorious cherry tree on the perimeter of our property. No one ate the cherries. They were left for the birds; but the flowers smell and beauty was a herald of spring. During a horrendous wind storm, a couple of years ago, much to our and the birds’ dismay, it fell. It must have been at least sixty years old. It was a very sad day and we still miss it come springtime.
This year I have the honour of being the President of our local Horticulture Society. I think it’s just my turn, but hey, I still have the title. That being the case I, (I=Royal-We), may even attempt some major re-decorating, garden style.
Shhh . . .Don’t mention this to my husband and grandsons though; I think it might be better as a surprise ….
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