I am a very bad gardener. I don' t have time. Nothing grows. My garden faces north.
But I love flowers. In the twenty or so years I've lived in my current home, I've tried to bring flowers in every week. Most often these are bought from a supermarket which is not a great thing. Increasingly, I sneak secateurs with me on walks, and snip greenery and leaves to spruce up hot house blooms. But I never do that without wincing at the thoughtlessness of Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility who sneers at Colonel Brandon's hot house flowers in favour of the worthless Willoughby's hand-picked wild bouquet. Flower class warfare has been going on for centuries.
Cornflowers and sweet peas are especially close to my heart, but their glory is short-lived every summer.
Is there a more gorgeous colour in nature than cornflower blue? Seldom available in Scotland, they leap out at me when I go south. This year, a strawberry farmer in Southwold sold bunches for £3 - who could resist? When I asked to take a photograph of the flowers against the brown of his bench, his son laughed and said, Yes - but that's another quid!
My dad grew sweet peas in his garden. They are a curious mix of the tough and the fragile. Their stems are wiry and strong, the flowers are delicate and vulnerable. When cut, they survive only briefly - barely 24 hours indoors - but those tissue-like petals give a perfume strong enough to linger for days. Most years, my dad would give each of us a fresh cut bunch of sweet peas. A precious gift, much in my mind as I look at those same flowers creeping through my neighbour's fence into my barren garden. There has been no work on my part, but I am pleased to welcome them in. I have in mind that it is my dad reminding me to see the beauty in small things. If it is, thanks, Dad.
Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time. Georgia O'Keeffe
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