China Girl blog

I tell my Dearest Mistress that in China we have an aphorism which says: “There are things which never could be imagined, but there is nothing which may not happen.” Sadly, it doesn’t seem to make much difference to her!

Slowly the back end of the year approaches, I notice that the trees are losing their leaves, especially Gymnocladus dioica, known as the Kentucky Coffee Tree. The early settlers made a substitute for coffee with its beans. Here it seldom flowers and never sets seed. In Holland they call it Bones of a dead man, owing to its long period without its leaves. It is the first tree in the garden to shed its leaves and it does not leaf up until mid June; its branches look lifeless against the changing sky.

Now that we are in September, the garden is held together by the many annual cosmos in all their different colours. They are definitely the plant of the week. Every empty space where the perennials have faded is filled with this glorious ethereal flower, which is a native of Mexico & southwards to Brazil. They wander through the garden like a string of lovely pearls.