Once upon a time, it was my happy fortune to be active in the world of song. This usually creates a gorgeous picture of glamor, exciting travel, and general adulation.
But the hours of relaxation are few and far between. Despite tire plaudits and the enthusiasm of public acclaim, a career because of its many responsibilities is very much of a hot-house affair.
The singer and the hot-house plant share a super-heated, carefully tended shelter designed for unusual and exotic results. Hence, one is necessarily weaned away from more simple environments.
The Orchid
The orchid, far from its native tropics, and the singer are both restricted to artificial stimulation in designed elegance that attests to their particular virtues, for it is not in the normal scheme of things to tax a human throat in competition with a thunderous orchestra.
Nor can a scientist coax to his proud will the latest hybrid in laboratory excitement for super-floral achievement. Such efforts can constitute genius, and the resultant spectacular effects cannot be denied.
My garden efforts are far removed from stellar ambitions. They are intended to bring solace to a troubled spirit as they deal with a memory that will forever remain bright and lasting through the years.
Daffodils in Landscapes
Some time ago, on a spring morning, I left the grime of train travel to return to my green hills and village tranquility.
Daffodils rippled in an exquisite golden carpet at my feet. It was a feast for eyes that had only seen, in landscapes, through the blurred windows of the train, skies stifled limiter smoke, fog, and rain, as a relentless machine bore me to various singing duties.
Here at home was clean, clear air, blue sky, and nature enchanting! I breathed deeply, happily conscious of the bubbling brook garlanded with anemones.
There were shady woods where the generous earth shielded frail blossoms and invited the climbing embrace of trailing vines. I am thrilled about these early vernal delights.
Flowers in June
Then came June. Like knights of legend, Irises breasted the gentle breezes in serried ranks.
Roses and lilies nodded in their sparkling collars of dew; larkspur and Canterbury bells swayed to their fairy chimes. All these lovely, unhurried arrivals came according to their seasonal cue.
A garden is like a church; it carries a benediction as summer blooms and gives way to the glorious harmers of Autumn. Then the earth rests on renewing her fecund magic slowly from under snowy covers. Again it’s spring!
Queen Flora
Perhaps it is because I have known so many exotic blossoms as tributes that I have a fellow feeling and a nostalgia for the more simple expressions of Queen Flora.
I like my violets clustered in riotous welcome along green borders; I prefer my pansies under an open sky, where apple blossoms float in rosy clouds overhead.
Country Living
I have a stab in my heart to see that shy woodland beauty, the trailing arbutus, trussed in a hempen noose and Hawkes about city streets till the delicate bloom succumbs.
I like my laundry yard wreathed in pungent honeysuckle: a harbor at all times for the birds and furry unites, mindful of the scattered tidbits accorded their needs in season.
How good and sane is country living! It gives time to think, to enjoy, to observe. It awakens one to patient lessons from patient plants and burgeoning trees that swell and bud, with a daily reminder of our glorious birthright.
All human creatures need to be soothed and healed in everyday confusion and set right on fundamental paths that lead to one’s best endeavors.
If a stray seed falls from some feathered voyager above my rooftops, it will not intrude in any carefully designed garden scheme. I let my acres run according to their understanding of nature.
“Mr. Twigg’s Mistake”
If you have ever read that delightful “Mr. Twigg’s Mistake” (all about a fascinating mole who went by the name, euphoniously enough, of De Gaulle!), mole rims will never again cause you any agonizing concern on your front lawn.
Do you quiver at field mice? If so, you should make the acquaintance of “Amos,” who nestled in Ben Franklin’s fur cap (the diplomatic pouch of that era) and who was, so he relates, the real ambassador to cement the entente cordiale between the sister republics.
So engaging a little liar will predispose you to all small animal life. What are half-nibbled bulbs when you can see bright eyes peering from a rocky wall pocket, with just the whisk of a tiny body making for the fern thatch?
If my dachshunds give chase and tread upon growing things in pursuit, I am not suddenly thrown into a tizzy.
Flower Arrangements
As I have little appreciation or enthusiasm for stylized flower arrangements, I expect the horticultural expert will frown at my inefficiency.
Maybe so. Nor do I shudder if a brazen zinnia crowds a delicate petunia or if the phlox “reverts.’ to a shrieking magenta, for nature has been at work, not I!
I am pleased and have no qualms about color schemes, form combinations, or seasonal specimens.
For me, a flower is always a miracle, whether in the garden or the field, and very frankly, my feeling goes beyond any stated pattern.
Garden Attitude
With the years, as in all things, affectation reveals itself, and no less than in the snobbish garden attitudes.
My shrubs and flowers are not the choicest, the largest, or the rarest. They are in no way unusual but depend on nature for kindly ministrations in this day of manpower shortage.
She rewards me richly, as my heart sings in contemplation: “While close to the sod, there can be seen, A thought of God, in white and green.”
44659 by Geraldine Farrar