The beauty of inflections

I was listening to a CD of bird song as I drove home this evening. My heart and stomach lurched as the sound of a blackbird filled the car. It is only when I hear the melodies after an absence of some time that I realise how much they are a part of the excitement of the renewing year.

Life can be measured by the singing of blackbirds; in February, they start to sing in the darkness of early spring mornings. As plants start to burst into life, the singing swells up to a crescendo in late spring and early summer. As my birthday approaches, the frequency of the sweet and mellow song starts to decline and on that day I know that the days are getting shorter and winter is on its way. A melancholic day.

Poets seem to have a soft spot for the bird, for example Wallace Stevens (from whom the title of this post comes), Tennyson, and Seamus Heaney.

So, today I had a burst of spring time in autumn, a glimpse of lengthening days and the sound of hope. Perhaps you should too.

Seed head

I did it!

Today, I took part in (and completed) a 10K run* to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Whilst all the UK garden bloggers have no doubt been enjoying the clorious weather today, I was swearing at the sun. It was hot work but a wonderful sight to see everyone running for one reason. A celebration of life, and an opportunity to remember those who lost their fight for life.

x

* run would be a generous description of my progress, but who cares!

Father and elder child only...

When I was a child, there used to be a TV quiz programme called 'Ask the Family', with Robert Robinson. I was a bit too young to grasp most of the questions, and was also concerned that members of the family were randomly picked to answer certain questions - my idea of hell. However, one of the questions I always used to enjoy was that of identifying a familiar household object* from a close-up. I was rubbish at it, but it didn't stop me trying.

Why not have a go?

(*Edit for clarification: this photo is most definitely of a plant).

September flowers

So, I'll have to face facts. This morning there was mist. There is evidence of fruitfulness - the apples flaunt their swelling sweetness in front of me. The weather is mellow. Autumn has arrived. And so we have a change in some of the main players on the garden stage. Some of the old stalwarts of summer continue, but shuffle sideways to make way for fresher talent.

Miscanthus

But it's also good to take the opportunity to look at some flowers with fresh eyes. The busy lizzies (planted by SomeBeans - his first real foray into planting) have sat in the shade all summer, just getting on with the business of flowering, and not complaining whilst I admired the more 'exciting' blooms. But close up, their satiny sheen shines through the shadows.

Busy Lizzie (Impatiens)

Helenium

Hardy Geranium

Helianthus 'Lemon Queen'

Knifophia 'Ice Queen'

Dahlia (unknown cultivar - mis-labelled)

Perovskia 'Blue Spire'

Schizostylis coccinea 'Major'

Aster frikartii 'Monch'

Rosa

Cyclamen

Californian poppy in the autumn sun

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens

...and colour as bright as your cheek

Dahlias.

Where should I start? My father was a man obsessed - he grew dahlias for showing, and did it very well, although he no longer does so. My childhood was measured in dahlia growing seasons. From the taking of cuttings, setting out in the garden, the first buds, the smell of mothballs to deter earwigs. The forest of stems, rising up from a floor of straw. Hide and seek between the rows.

As showing season came, the smell of wet newspapers to hold the stems in place during transport. The conical vases designed to show off each perfect bloom to its best advantage. Rainbows of flowers, preened with paintbrushes. A litany of names I could reel off, but remember only vaguely now - Evelyn Foster, Rothesay Robin (my favourite), Klanlstad Kerkrade...

Second class blooms were sold to the local grocer, with me carrying them the short distance, blooms down, to keep the water in the stems. What a smell. What a sight.

And the shows - hundreds of blooms of endless types, sizes and colours. Only six or seven, I could look at the flowers and note imperfections - one bloom larger than the others, one gone 'daisy-eyed', drooping stems, a petal nibbled by an earwig. The types - cactus, decoratives, the semi-cactus; and the sizes, checked scrupulously with judging rings: giants, large, medium. But best of all, the pompoms. My father never grew these, much to my disappointment. I loved their neatness, their roundness, their firmness, and best of all, they were on a scale a small child could appreciate. A handful of perfection, which I was never allowed to touch.

And so, now I have my own garden, do I indulge my misty-eyed reminiscences? Well, I've grown a few, but the less showy cousins of the prima donnas grown by my father. The Bishop of Llandaff (but who hasn't?) and his children grown from seed. A few bedding dahlias (the shame!) and one or two other cultivars. But I have not indulged my desire for the pompoms. Child-sized wonders will be left in the past; but still, when I visit the Malvern Autumn show this month, I'll check for imperfections, and my palms will itch to cup the perfect, tiny blooms in my hands and inhale the scent of my childhood.

The title of the post comes from a poem by Lord Holland:

"The Dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises for ever shall speak:

Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,

And colour as bright as your cheek."

An autobiography in aromas

Standing by the kitchen door last night, I was struck by the smell of the honeysuckle growing close by. The olfactory nerves seem to have a direct line to our memories, which other senses don't.

Honeysuckle transports me back to summer holidays in Tenby, South Wales, where the blossoms perfumed the air as we walked into town in the evenings.

I've already written about the instant time travel evoked by the aroma of lilac, but other plants have a similar effect. Marigolds remind me of crisp autumn Sundays, helping to pull up the spent plants from the front garden, and desperately trying to wash off their 'distinctive' smell. I could wallow in the scent of wallflowers forever, remembering times when I could spend all morning investigating their smell and their silken blooms between my fingers. Sweetpeas too - what is a better start to summer than inhaling their perfume until you can't breathe in any longer? Even daffodils feature heavily in my olfactory memories, reminding me of the woods of Wales, gonks, car sickness, and (many years later) meeting SomeBeans.

Dahlias will have a post of their own soon, but nothing smells more like childhood than their scent on my fingers after a few moments deadheading.

And at the moment, the not unpleasant odour of slowly decaying vegetation, signalling the changing of the seasons, which makes me remember returning to school after a long summer of freedom. Plus ça change...

A break in the storms

It stopped raining for an hour or two this afternoon, and we had the joy of being able to see our own shadows for a short time, whilst the sun was out. The insects were quick to enjoy the break in the storms of recent days, stocking up with nectar after 48 hours of rain.

Do not go gentle...

...into the dark and cold nights of autumn. For indeed, the Met Office have decreed that September 1st is the start of autumn. Cue gardening magazines banging on about seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness.

But wait...looking into the garden, I see the flowers of mid-summer still flaunting their blooms. There are a couple of nods towards the changing season - the Schizostylis coccinea Major has just started flowering, and the crab apples are rosy ripe. But the later performers are still shuffling their feet in the wings, waiting to burst onto the stage. Whilst Aster x frikartii 'Monch' has been flowering for a month, the other asters (cultivars unknown - donated by a chap my father did some work for) are still tightly budded. Even the dahlias have yet to burst forth.

True, the robin is starting to sing his ode to the darkening nights, and the unmistakeable odour of the lush summer vegetation starting to rot assails the nostrils on a still morning. But still, until the first frost blackens the tender growth, I'll not acknowledge those mists or accept the mellow fruitfulness, but will celebrate the bean flowers, lilies, and all those other blousy summer blooms who don't listen to the Met Office. And I'll rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(with apologies to Dylan Thomas)

Digging for Victory

Let it be known that the wondrous day has come. SomeBeans has dug to the end of the allotment. He is now bereft; I am thinking of hiring him out to the newer people on the site.

I've not written about the allotment for a while. We will be giving up the half plot come renewal time in April. The only produce we currently have on it are strawberries (due to be transplanted onto the whole plot), some beans (ha ha! - actually, he spends most of his time on the whole plot) and carrots and parsnips. Oh, and couch grass, horsetails (see previous post), bindweed, etc.

On and off, the whole plot has been dug over for the past 12 months, a couple of rows at a time, painfully pulling out perennial weed roots. Sometimes too frozen to pull out the roots, often too wet to tread on, the soil has now been turned. Half of it is already planted up, but the second half is currently covered to try and reduce weed growth. Just for more fun, this plot also has ground elder, as well as the other weeds mentioned above. Ho hum. It's just as well I quite enjoy weeding; apparently, the rich used to employ lady weeders for sixpence a week to help maintain their gardens. So, if anyone would like to employ a slow but thorough digger and a lady weeder, please let me know.SomeBeans