Promises

Yesterday I finally pruned back the dogwoods, down to a few inches above ground level.  This ensures new brightly coloured stems next winter.  And I tackled the mahonia.  The only one in the garden was outgrowing its space somewhat and I was becoming fed up, whilst mowing, of having my right arm painfully scratched. Mahonia is not a particularly lovely shrub.  Until recently I had dismissed it as a boring-supermarket-car-park-bush with the added annoyance of prickly leaves scattered about for me to kneel on whilst weeding.  I’m not sure that I would ever choose to plant one, but I have been won over by the explosion of yellow flowers during the grimmest part of the year.Whilst pruning (listening to my mp3 player and doing a little dancing – it’s OK no-one can see), I noticed the promise of things to be:sedums, tightly curled up and ready for the offDay lilies, looking good enough for me to graze onOne of the lupins that lay dormant during the years-of-neglectAquilegia, again just waiting for the starter’s pistolwatering in the greenhouse, I saw that the Venus flytraps are pushing up their flower stalks.Hmm.  They are so alien looking.  Like little ET marxist salutes.  Maybe they’re not flower stalks at all.  Maybe they’re communication masts.  Oh my goodness, they’re preparing to call their home planet.  Or Mothership.  Requesting reinforcements, I suspect.  The conquest of Earth isn’t going to plan.  Or perhaps just beaming home the latest installment in an occasional Sunday Supplement series on ‘Transgalactic Weirdos.’  But if that’s the case what are they doing in my greenhouse?  Precious little material there surely?