Many years past , when we were younger and far more difficult to tire, lol we created a secret garden.
Designed with three six foot walls of concrete block ending in double wooden gates with spikes to mimic old iron gates we'd admired in London. The gates, once painted high gloss black gave a good faux impression of iron. The garden creation was a massive effort, laying the block, building the gates, brining in the soil and stone. We worked on the project week after week after week. When it was complete it was a fortress of tranquility & it was barren, as any newly completed project is wont to be.
The concrete blocks (hundreds of them) were bright, as were the mortar joints. Even the small pebble gravel glinted in the sunlight. The only rest for the eye was the darkness of the earth where we'd arranged for future plants and informal gardens.
But even then I knew it was a place I'd love.
The curious thing was that I'd thought the hardest part was done.
But, as it turned out the greatest challenge, and reward, wass to be found in the small details.
And amid the time it would take to arrive at the dreamt of destination.
The secret courtyard garden North wall as it looks today..
First came the decisions we made of what to plant.
Next came the decsion of those plants as to what would live there, lol
We and the plantings disagreed often.
But plant by plant, step by step, year by year the dream evolved.
Over three decades the walls have softened, the colors gently aged.
The clemantis, ivy, euonymus have become intertwined. Good friends with each other.
Tiger lillies and barberry bushes cluster happily under the crabbapple tree
that buzzes with bees and brilliant pink blooms every Spring.
This place, this tiny garden, has given more hours of pleasure and peace than anyone has a right to have dreampt. So much from such a tiny bit of ground, from such a small inauspicious beginning.
And in the many years I've walked thru it, over the years I've gazed at it thru all four seasons
I'm only now understanding it's a study, a lesson in the flow of life....
All beginnings are difficult. Much work, little rest. Stark at birth.
Some things, ideas, dreams, journeys, die. Others thrive, succeed, flourish.
And often you are never able to understand why....
Most important things take time. Patience. A definate will-not-be-rushed-ness.
Some combinations protect each other. Some combinations compete.
Some have no influence or impact whatsoever at all upon each other.
They simply 'are', day by day, coincidentally sharing space and time.
Some things are dramatically beautiful ~ but for only a season.
Some are beautiful in much quiter ways but for the entire length of the season, even into death.
Life layers.
Flowers = bees
Vines = birds
Ivy = rabbits
Berries = passing visitors only there for as long as the berries last and never return.
There are conflict and scuffles. Births and passings.
There is cohabitation, song, buzzing, rustling, cricket chirping, firefly sparkling.
There is magic.
There is contentment.
In spite of, and alongside the unchosen sadness, passings, competiton, quarreling the magic and contentment remain. Unbowed. Challenged but not diminished, not overcome.
Who knew, when we layed those blocks in the blistering sun decades ago, tired but driven by a dream
that this little patch of ground
would teach us so much about
life....
FDFerris Copyright 2010
