English Garden

The only difference between today and yesterday (and the day before that), is that I spent the afternoon looking at the garden (and taking more photos of it) rather than working in it. More time wasted spent sorting boxes of family photos and mementos, I found a piece of paper upon which my Dad had printed a poem by Rudyard Kipling "The Glory of the Garden".  My Dad loved the C19th early C20th English poets. And he loved his garden in every house that he called home, including this one.  He also had a soft spot for Audrey Hepburn .... blip :)

The fuchsia pictured and messed with is one of four varieties that I bought a couple of days ago, and is called "Star Wars".  Fuchsias are one of my favourite flowers, along with Snap Dragons, Pansies, and Mombretia (now called crocosmia), and all for the fond memories of different gardeners and gardens I have known. Isn't it wonderful that flowers can evoke such happy memories of our past as well as giving such visual pleasure in the present, and as Audrey says, encourage our faith in there even being a 'tomorrow' ?

Oh dear, not much of a tomorrow at Wimbledon for Roger,  very disappointing - but delighted that Andy won so convincingly. Yup, I watched tennis all afternoon and longer. Because I can. 

The Glory of the Garden
Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye. 

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:-" Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray 
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
- Rudyard Kipling

English Country Gardens

(Can you tell I had an uneventful day?)