Every so often, I wish I had a well-behaved garden.
The kind where everything does what I want, when I want.
Where flowers don’t stray into lawns and lawns don’t stray into flowerbeds, and the strong wind didn’t break one of the arches on the arbour my dear husband so carefully built.
But this I know:
Real gardens offer up surprises each week, each day and sometimes, each hour.
Like flowers blooming in unexpected colours.
And interesting visitors.
Like this large bird in the apple tree.
And wild rabbits.
Cleaning themselves without a care in the world.
Like this mother duck, with her ducklings.
She must have squeezed herself under the fence.
This ant, dragging a dead moth many times its size. It took the moth way across the verandah.
This beet, expected to be dark red, is somehow orange.
A single squash. It’s from a vine that strayed from our neighbours’ squash plantation.
“It’s yours”, he says. The thing will grow to almost half my height. No kidding.
These onions, because they delight and surprise me each late summer.
And the garlic, just because the sight of them when newly harvested always surprises me.
The sight of our daughter’s little doggie, coming around the corner at full speed. Well, sort of.
And this shadow “selfie”, which I didn’t know was there till I downloaded it and nearly jumped in surprise.
Gardens: places of surprise and discovery.
**
Dedicated to all gardeners, everywhere.
Cynthia Reyes 