I cannot believe that we are at another Saturday already. I know I say it every week but time is whizzing by and we all agreed about this on Thursday at Seasons.
As I said I am including lots of the virtual garden tours as with no July gardens I am afraid this opportunity will pass us by all too soon. I know how much you enjoy them whether stylised or natural, small or large, water filled or hillside. So for today we are off to the Cotswolds and to Blockley. Have a good tour!
Below, we find a description of the garden in Tom's Midnight Garden, basking in the natural things there. There are references to the grass, the flower borders, the greenhouse etc. All pretty normal for an affluent garden. It feels special almost magical, because Peace uses words like glittering, "thickly interlaced branches," and silence. Yet this is normal, but not to the Victorian who was brought up and lived in the smoky city. It paints a contrast to the dirty, industrial nature of Victorian life and the simplicity of a rural idyll, in its garden.
From Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce.
"He would run full tilt over the grass, leaping the flowerbeds; he would peer through the glittering panes of the greenhouse - perhaps open the door and go in; he would visit each alcove and archway clipped in the yew-trees - he would climb the trees and make his way from one to another through thickly interlacing branches. When they came calling for him, he would hide, silent and safe as a bird, among the richness of leaf and bough and tree trunk."
Staying in the Cotswolds we journey to Paulmead, to a relatively small garden of just one acre and see what joys await us there.
In Cider with Rosie we have Laurie Lee's terrifying first encounter with the garden. For him it is not the fantastic space of plants and flowers but rather something at the tender age of three to be frightened about and cry to be rescued, which of course he was!
We are of course staying in Gloucestershire for this extract.
From Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee.
"I was set down from the carrier’s cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began. The June grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before. It towered above me and all around me, each blade tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight. It was knife-edged, dark, and a wicked green, thick as a forest and alive with grasshoppers that chirped and chattered and leapt through the air like monkeys. I was lost and didn’t know where to move. A tropic heat oozed up from the ground, rank with sharp odours of roots and nettles. Snow-clouds of elder-blossom banked in the sky, showering upon me the fumes and flakes of their sweet and giddy suffocation. High overhead ran frenzied larks, screaming, as though the sky were tearing apart. For the first time in my life I was out of the sight of humans. For the first time in my life I was alone in a world whose behaviour I could neither predict nor fathom: a world of birds that squealed, of plants that stank, of insects that sprang about without warning. I was lost and I did not expect to be found again. I put back my head and howled, and the sun hit me smartly on the face, like a bully."
Now over to Stanton, still in Gloucestershire and another lovely garden to explore. Enjoy!
This extract comes from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
"And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometime gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses impress people at garden Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels."
A fun blessing from a gardener who had missed sending his last year's palm into church for Ash Wednesday.
God,
thank you for your abundant blessings.
Thank you for this soil,
which you have given,
and for the seeds
that you will make to grow here.
Bless our garden and help it to flourish:
bless the tomatoes and the berries,
the potatoes and the squash,
and all the others,
along with the birds, butterflies,
bees, spiders,
and other creatures who visit
or live here.
(I hope the hummingbird comes back again this year!)
Give us all warmth and sun,
and rain when we need it.
Please protect this garden,
and all our gardens,
from drought or hail or damaging pests.
(And if you could keep the mosquito population to a dull roar,
I'd really appreciate it!)
Protect our trees from strong winds,
and the birds
who come to splash in the birdbath
or nibble the snow peas.
And if we should have one of THOSE storms,
may I be as gracious as Job and say,
"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away;
blessed be the name of the Lord."
(Oh, look, the first lady bug!)
And bless the farmers,
whose gardens are so much bigger than mine!
Please bring us all to a happy harvest,
and help us to share our abundance with others who need it.
Thank you for all the life
that lives in this sacred space.
Bless it,
and bless us,
and help us to remember
that your whole world
and all beings within it
form a beautiful and blessed garden
that deserves our love and care.
+Amen.
And to conclude today some music as you reflect on things and what you have seen and read. Enjoy your garden whether it is a pot on a balcony or your multi acre plot.
Have a good and restful Saturday.
Comments