Letter to the Garden December 2021

Dear Garden,  

We race towards the shortest day, the nights get longer and the daylight hours more precious it also feels like the clouds are gathering on the horizon again in relation to the pandemic.  Well I say gathering, I don't think they ever dispersed but just as I think that with vaccines and boosters and flu jabs we might be seeing a speck of blue sky, a new variant comes along that not much is known about so the only reaction is to be afraid again.  I am so very tired of being afraid.

So my dear garden I am going to do the only thing  I can do in this situation:  I shall control the things I can control and not worry about those things I cannot.  I shall spend as much time in the garden as the weather will allow and do my favourite thing:  enjoying the little things.  These euonymous berries have to be high on that list of enjoyments at the moment as they have been wonderful this year.

They are such special berries, an orange berry be-flounced by fuchsia pink skirts.  This year my young tree has been its best yet.  The foliage has hung on for longer than usual and the berries have been more numerous.  This tree has been in garden about five years now and as usual it has taken it a year or two to settle down and start to put down roots.  Dear garden I love watching the trees I have planted start to really grow.  I do sometimes think I have planted too many and that one day you will be a small wood or a copse?  I rather like this idea, it feels like it will be my legacy when I move on from you dear garden.  One day will someone be wandering through the garden looking at the trees, tutting and saying they are too close together and creating too much shade but hopefully enjoying the different types.  I worry that more likely someone will be thinking this as they are cutting them down to build on my garden as that seems to happen so often these days...... and  I will haunt them, be in no doubt of that.  When the clock strikes 4am I shall be that creeping dread that wakes the builder who did the deed.  They won't know why they are awake, they won't know why they feel afraid but it shall happen night after night.  That will be my dark haunting.  For the people that live in the houses built on this garden, every plant they plant will thrive, be it indoors or out, that will be my light haunting.  Maybe I am thinking this through too much....

Oh no, dear garden, don't panic!  We are not going around that roundabout again (well not that I know of anyway), I am not intending on going anywhere, but sometimes my mind wanders.

I shall stop thinking about what might be coming or might not be, it is now that matters.  Dear Garden I am going to spend this month sorting and tidying and trying to get to grips on what I need to do to keep you happy.

Wish me luck!  Wish me reasonable weather.

With all love

Your loving gardener.

Stay safe and be kind

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