Dear Garden,
Or should I say Dear Prudence as that is the ear-worm that has been wandering my head for a few days now.
There I was sewing listening to a random playlist and up came 'Dear Prudence' by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Way back in the day I was a big fan of their music. I know some of you are tutting already and shouting 'but its a Beatles song, its a Beatles song!!!'; yes I know this, but I would never have listened to their version back then and it is the Siouxsie version (c. 1983) I listen to with affection as it takes me right (right) back to where and who I was then. Because like you, my dearest garden, I have grown (a bit too much) and changed and very often regressed. I have never made any claims to be a grown up and I certainly do not now. 1983 was a good year, a year of hope, a year of fun, I can look back on it and smile. I had a garden in 1983, and I did look after it, but I cannot claim I was a prolific gardener at that time. 1983 was pre-children and of course I had cats at that time, I have never lasted long without a cat or three.
It is a good song to sing in the garden, it is a good song for singing and looking at the sky and hoping that it is indeed blue. I feel like I should be lying on the lawn and looking up just watching the clouds and wishing as ever I knew their names. I listen to the birds singing, which is getting louder and louder as nesting time draws close. This makes me realise I have missed the window of opportunity to deal with the ivy on the rowan tree as pigeons next in that tree. Not only is it illegal to disturb nesting birds, it is just something I would never do. There is a particularly loud robin in and around the garden at the moment. As the light fades at the end of the day I see him in the boundary hedge singing his little stripy socks off. There is a robin that nests in the leylandii hedge at the front of the house that separates me from my neighbours. It is the saving grace of that hedge, that and my neighbours keeping it trimmed to a reasonable height.
Of course if I was to lie on the grass like this, I would also be waiting for the ants to start wandering across me whilst they nip and bite; I have many ants nests in my garden, many.
So I sit on the bench (the grass is too cold and soggy at the moment) and hum gently and tunelessly, to myself. I look at how you are doing dear garden and I think you are doing quite well for a cold stormy week in February. The snowdrops and cyclamen are peaking, the winter honeysuckle and edgeworthia chrysantha are spreading their fragrance across the garden with added support from the Daphne Jacqueline Postill. I love winter scented shrubs, their scents waft so well in the cold air and adds a different dimension to the garden. In winter plants can strike a post and make their presence well and truly felt. They are not competing with the multitude of other flowers, they demand your attention. Winter flowers are not going to hide, they are the Siouxsie Sioux of the garden, you know when they are in the room.
Dear garden, my dearest garden, I shall be singing Dear Prudence for a while yet I am sure. Favourite tracks are like favourite films and favourite plants: it depends on the day, the weather, the mood and what colour (stripy) socks I have on. But you, my dear garden, are my favourite garden, of course you are.
With love
Your Loving Gardener
Stay safe and be kind.