Flowers – Page 3 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Flowers, Gardening, Life in canada, Poem, Poetry, Seasons Change, Winter's End

A Winter’s Tail

March 13, 2015March 24, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

The birds are back with songs of Spring

Their tunes incite imagining

That Winter’s end will soon arrive

And living things shall haste to thrive

Via vitalxrecognition.wordpress.com/ — Image Thanks to: vitalxrecognition.wordpress.com/

A Winter’s Tail, how bittersweet!

Today it’s sun, tomorrow sleet

And wind to stop us in our tracks

And cold to freeze Spring-hungry backs

One day we feel a wave of hope

Warmed by our thoughts that we can cope

And then come gales of Winter still

And blizzards coat the windowsill

Ho, Winter! Do your level best

Your time is near to take a rest

For Lady Spring prepares to rule

She’ll thaw your ice and warm your cool

She’ll rout you, kick your icy tail

She’ll make you wish you’d stopped at hail

Who’s mighty now, oh Freezer Guy

Who rules the roost? Oh my, oh my!

Spring wakes the earth; the gardens flower

She turns grass green and makes you cower

She strips away your winter clothes

And sprinkles sunshine up your nose

She brings new life to garden trail

She gives new strength to plants so frail

To stand up ‘gainst your mighty storm

And so defy your freezing form

Ho! Winter’s Tail, I kid you not

Pick up your snow and off you trot

Break down your ice and melt away

See you around, when skies are grey

See you next time, oh Frigid One

But not too soon, for Spring’s begun

And three great seasons I shall see

Before you’re back to torment me.

Thanks to Hamlin Grange for all original photos.

Dedicated to my friends Lisa E. and Marion W: Spring is near.

A Good Home, Gardening, Soil

It’s All In The Soil

January 21, 2015January 23, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

Mr. Smith lived in an old house on a double lot on a side street in Toronto.

I remember the first time I glimpsed his garden. It was a Saturday afternoon in mid-summer and I was driving past his home. I did a double-take, hit the brakes, reversed, stopped the car and got out so I could see more.

A tall, angular, white-haired man was dead-heading some roses. He wore spectacles, was neatly dressed in white shirt and dress trousers as if he was heading for some important meeting. He didn’t look like any gardener I’d ever seen.

Even so, I knew immediately that this was his garden and he was the gardener. I could see it in the way he bent to study his flowers and the soil around them, like an artist studies his unfinished painting on canvas.

I walked up to him and bravely said hello.

He looked up at me, gave a shy little half-laugh. “Hello.”

Something about that half-laugh endeared him to me, along with his grandfatherly age and look.

His flowers were everywhere. Running their riotous ways around the house and into the distance of his back garden, becoming more muted in the soft shade of trees, then re-emerging in all their glory in the brilliant sunlit spaces.

Big, fat dahlias, snapdragons and roses jostled for space with a multitude of other brilliantly-coloured flowers.

The garden was heaven on earth.

One afternoon Mr. Smith invited me into his kitchen for a cold drink. We sat at the small kitchen table and I told him how nicely the garden was doing and he claimed that it was a mess and needed more tending.

“I’d give a lot to have a garden half as beautiful and lush and healthy as this one,” I said. “It would take me forever, though. How on earth do you get it to look like this?” I peered through the back window and gestured to the garden.

He laughed that humble laugh again, and even seemed to blush.

“It’s all in the soil. Everything starts with good soil.”

This excerpt from my upcoming book “Beloved Gardens” is offered in support for Save The Soils. Thanks to Lori and Robbie, two great bloggers, for the prompt.

PHOTOS BY HAMLIN GRANGE, WHO ALSO MAKES GREAT COMPOST!

A Good Home, Caregiving, Health, Life Challenges, Love, Relationships

Flowers for Those Who Care

January 6, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

Blessed are the Caregivers

Who love and tend us in rough times.

Pay attention to the Caregivers

They give much to others, but who takes care of them?

Blessed are the Cared

Tended and loved by the Caregivers.

We would be lost without them

And their great faith that we will heal.

Comes a day, unexpected,

When the Caregiver becomes the Cared

And the Cared becomes Caregiver

Two grateful souls reflected in each other.

Dedicated to our friends David and Sandra, and to Natalie Scarberry, whose inspirational blog tends her readers’ spirits. You’re all in my prayers.

A Good Home, Canadian Gardens, Canadian life, Family Stories, Flowers, Gardens, Homes, Inspiration, Japanese Maples, Trees, Tropical Gardening in Canada

A Family’s Labour of Love

September 19, 2014September 20, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

Photos by Hamlin Grange

One of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen grows behind a very modern house not far from Toronto’s downtown.

A lush, hidden garden in a world of its own.

A place where tall trees loom into the sky, water flows peacefully, plants thrive and a discovery waits around every corner.

The garden is the ‘labour of love’ of Mary and Bob and their family. (Mary is on the right, below.)

While there’s no doubt that Mary provides the driving passion behind the garden (and loves nothing better than working in it) Bob and daughter Adrianne also play central roles.

“Bob built the arbor and pergola and has been so supportive of my passion,” Mary says.

“My Adrianne has been a big part of the creation. She is an incredible artist and we love when her time permits for us to work together on the garden.”

Mary describes the garden as “a canvas on which we have the privilege of unleashing our creativity”.

And what a work of art.

Japanese maples of different kinds – more than two hundred of them – weave through the garden, as do Japanese forest grass, hosta and other interesting plants.

Their foliage and colour contribute to the texture of the garden from spring to fall.

Hundreds of tropical plants thrive in the pool area, seeming completely at home.

Water features add to the feeling of peace here.

There are ponds.

Waterfalls.

And a water wall.

It is surprising to find a garden of this size and kind so close to downtown Toronto. Equally surprising: this garden is less than 6 years old.

The family was fortunate to have very large trees and more than an acre of land, but they had to start the garden from scratch.

Under the shade of the trees, and in many sunny spaces, the garden changed and evolved over those years.

You can see it many times and still find something new to admire every time.

New plants, new trees, new structures.

Which may explain why friends beg to tour the garden every time they visit.

And gardening magazines love producing features about it.

Mary talks about her family’s creation with a gardener’s passion. There’s wonder and delight in her voice and on her face when she stops to look at a new development.

A late-season rose.