Garden thoughts

I seem to have the snuffles today. I just can’t stop blowing my nose. I started by telling myself it was just the onion – one of my first tasks of the day has been to make a cottage pie for dinner, beginning with frying some chopped onion – but now I’m questioning if that is all that it is. After all it’s nearly an hour since I fried the onion so you would have thought I’d have dried up by now, but no I keep on blowing. My cotton hanky is so sodden I’ve resorted a paper tissue instead.

Yesterday we spent some time talking about the Netherlands. We got our old guide books out & began to dream about what we might see this time. My completed jigsaw of the Keukenhof Gardens inspired the Fox to admit that, now we have a beautiful garden, he’s found he’s gained an interest in visiting other gardens. I’m really pleased about this. He’s wondering if we will come back with all sorts of bulbs – some tulips & fritillaries perhaps.

For me visiting a garden is a pleasure in itself, just seeing plants & arrangements of them I don’t normally see. Now they are also a source of inspiration. As far as I can see our garden is a work in progress. I’m pleased that the Fox wants to discover what pleases him in a garden. It’s something we can work on together, even if we have to get someone else in to do most of the actual hard work of planting & caring for the garden.

My biggest disappointment about the garden as it was planted a couple of years ago, is that it is full of very muted soft colours. A bit of me says it makes it very restful, very calming & peaceful. I think they saw the garden as a place of retreat from the pain & stresses of life, a place to relax & recuperate. It is just that I like hot vibrant colours of which there are very few. Many of the plants planted were ones I didn’t know & have gained an appreciation of, but I do feel there is need for some extras, and to my mind they will provide the extra colour I crave. The basic design of the garden I do like. It’s just the planting that requires a bit of tweaking.