At this time of year the meadows seem to me like Fairyland; a magic carpet of different coloured lily-flowered tulips, opening their pointed petals to the spring sunshine; the meadow in all its beauty is like a holy place. Usually the meadow is planted with tulips that are dark, almost black; however, Mother was sent a card with a difference and after twenty years, for the first time the meadow is full of coloured tulips like a multi-coloured rainbow. A change is good, for nothing endures but change. Meantime, the white tulip trumpeters march like an army of wingless angels through the garden linking each area, a great white wandering ribbon.
At long last flowers are appearing. The huge yellow skunk cabbage Lysichiton americanus growing in the wild, from north-west Carolina in the Santa Cruz mountains, north to Alaska. They do well in boggy places and slow-flowing streams. Also flowering is the spectacular dark Trillieum chloropectalum giganteum, it reminds me of a triffid, so strange are the flowers. The wonderfully scented Vibernum opulus, one of our native shrubs, Ma says it smells like expensive bath oil. In full-flower are more tulips in a huge bed of many different white forms in tight formation, they resemble the Russian army goose-stepping.
Dearest says what would we do without Jan, Cothay’s Administrator, who sits patiently all day in the office keeping order and trouble at bay. I like her too, but not her yellow Labrador, who sits under her desk. If I go in the office, I show her who is top dog, with a nasty snarl!
Dearest says that when God made the mould for me, he threw it away so I am unique. How wonderful it is to be so special and so loved.
The fragile ecology of the garden endures, and so with the spring well and truly sprung, the garden is a gateway of hope and waiting.
Greenham, Nr. Wellington,
Somerset, TA21 OJR
01823 672283
