Sunday Selections #477

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.

Huge thanks to Cie who gave me this wonderful Sunday Selections image.
  
The meme was then continued by River at Drifting through life.  Sadly she has now stepped aside (though she will join us some weeks), and I have accepted the mantle.
 
The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to me. Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen. 
 
I usually run with a theme. This week, like most of the world, I am still at home. I can get into the garden, and I can go for walks in the neighbourhood.  And I do.

I first heard of the 'Teddy bear Hunt' on line.  People are encouraged to put bears in their windows to brighten the days of children who are limited by the lockdown protocols.   My inner child is alive and well so I had to hunt in my own street.

 There is limited pickings in my street - and most of the 'bears' seem to be dogs.  So I wondered what I could put up.
My bears have left the building leaving me only 'pink puppy' who is small and can no longer stand up.

Why 'pink' puppy I hear you ask?  I chose pink puppy myself, before I was two.  My parents lined up a selection of stuffed toys and let me take my pick.  I chose pink puppy - who wasn't either of my parents first choice.  They shuffled the toys and let me choose again.  And repeated the process.  When I still chose pink puppy he came home with us.  And went everywhere with me for a number of years.  Everywhere included a hospital trip.  When I was vilely sick on him (coming round from an anaesthetic) the nurses sterilised him and his colour faded.  He was still much loved and has lived in every house I have.

Teddy bear pickings are fairly limited in my street so far, so I will continue the hunt.

And of course I have been revelling in the sky.  In all her moods.

The garden has claimed a lot of my time too (and will get even more this week since as I was preparing this post 500 mixed daffodil and jonquil bulbs were delivered).

As you can see from the last photograph, autumn is here.  In the next little while I will wander around and take photos of the aboreal fireworks on display.

Stay safe, stay well.

WEP Garden Flash Fiction Challenge

WEP Gardens Challenge

The WEP (Write, Edit, Publish) Challenge so generously hosted by Denise Covey and Yolanda Renee is back.

This month the focus is on gardens.  We are asked to create something about them - and can do so through fiction, non-fiction, photography...   Which leaves it wide open.

If you visit here and click on any names with a DL next to them you will be taken to some wonderful pieces.

This stunning badge was one of two created by Olga Godim.  This one looks just like the garden I try and create from the jungle at home.

Gardens are one of my obsessions.  I pour more energy, time and money than I have into mine.  I bleed for it (and in it) and sweat over it.  And drool over other people's gardens.  So this challenge should be right up my street.  Except it wasn't.  As is not uncommon, my mind took me to some strange places.

***

The Garden of my Mind.

An unreliable mind map.  Time?  Direction?  Season?  Terrain?  Climate?  All subject to change.  With little or no warning.  It is a crowded space, and rarely completely safe.  Protective clothing is mandatory (and rarely worn).  Gloves, hard hat and closed footwear should be worn at all times.  And will sometimes be inadequate. 

There is beauty and ugliness, birth and death, growth and decay.   At some times and in some places they co-exist.  At other times there are bitter supremacy battles. 

A mixture of organic remains, clay and granite particles, sown with an occasional diamond is laid down as soil.  It is rich, uneven and multi-coloured. Friable and deep or barely concealing jagged edges.   Sometimes almost black, at other times golden or rainbow hued and sparkle laden.  Experience makes a fine compost.  My blood, sweat and tears fertilise the ground when love and laughter are in short supply. 

Cherished memories, hoarded hope, shards of beauty, husks of the might have been,  forgotten dreams and regrets form a thick, thick mulch. Negative thinking worms aerate it.

Rainbows, stars, the moon (in all her phases) and the sun share the sky. 

There are (relatively) ordered areas and largely unexplored Wild Woods.  There are sunny glades, dark dank corners, wastelands and areas lying fallow.  

The beds are crowded, and the borders largely unmarked.  Some plants are carefully chosen and nurtured.  They are fragile and may or may not survive.  Some seeds arrive on the back of  a book, a smile or other pieces of beauty.  Torpedos of media spin explode others into the garden.  There are  wind-blown volunteers (sometimes weeds and sometimes precious) and some which have been planted by people who have been allowed (or have taken) time in my head.  This last  category are slow-growing plants, deep rooted and resilient.  And often poisonous.   The sticky seeds of forget-me-nots take root everywhere.  Welcome or not. 

In an open sunny clearing, the roses of confidence thrive, jostling for space with dancing daffodils and elegant lilies hinting at sophistication.  Battalions of tulips salute the sun in colours begged, borrowed and stolen from the rainbows.   Ripe and fleshy orchids flaunt their sensuality cheek by jowl with frigid snowdrops.  Knowledge vines climb slowly up walls.  Nostalgic granny's bonnets nod in the breeze. 

In that same crowded bed the roses are covered with the black spot of inadequacy and snap dragons drip unkindness and malevolence from their pretty mouths.  Poppies wither and fade.  Spikes of good intentions emerge from the ground, are neglected and fail to set seed.  Lies and half truths bloom and flourish. A leaf litter of chaos and confusion is thick  and slippery underfoot.  The pansies of paranoia chatter incessantly.  Sanity and its hybrid serenity are shallow rooted and wither under the onslaught.  Bickering, niggling nettles run rampant.
 

Shy violets of hope echo the stars on grassy knolls.  A precious few will take wings and fly but most are smothered by disillusion and despair, which ripen in hours and spread faster than  thought. 
.  

Shoals of ideas dart through clear, fast moving water.   Most escape but some are caught and farmed. 

Fat tubers of resentment are fed by sullenly bubbling fetid and greasy  pools.

The tide rushes in, leaving giant piles of rank smelling grey-green depression at the high water mark.

The tide rushes out, leaving clean sands to write upon.

Trees offer wisdom, support and comfort. 

Trees reach bony limbs to trip and strangle the unwary.

It is not an idle space.  Activity bees hum down synapses.  Weeding, pruning, planting, nurturing.  Staking (through black hearts or for support).   Ripping out entire beds of misplaced knowledge.   Eradicating dark thoughts and growth.  Exploration parties.  Building paths and shelters.  Cutting back wayward growth.  Planning for the gardens to come. 

The work is never done.

Which is true of all gardens.

***
634 words.
Full Critique Acceptable.

 

Tulip Tops 2012 - Still an extravaganza

On Wednesday the skinny portion and I went, as we do every year, to Tulip Top Gardens, which is less than fifty kilometers from where we live.  It is always a delight and puts our home grown Floriade to shame (and we go there every year as well).  Floriade is free to enter but makes up for it with the intense marketing within its boundaries.  The Tulip Top Gardens entry fee for an adult is $12 which includes a sausage sandwich and a free cup of tea or coffee.  I don't eat meat so the skinny portion got two sausages - which won't go astray at all.  He still badly needs building up.

The entry to the gardens is down a very steep path flanked by blossom trees (there is also a level entry for people with disabilities).
(Clicking on any of the photos will enlarge them.)

At the bottom of the walkway there is a small bridge.  I couldn't see any, but I could certainly hear the frogs.
Looking to the left...

Looking to the right...

Looking straight ahead.

 

We ambled along, basking in the sunshine and taking photos as we went.  Classical music plays from the trees and there are small groups of chairs dotted around the gardens.  There is a small waterfall, cascading down the hill to the ponds below.

Still walking...

A bed of forsythia with brilliant purple pansies beneath them.

Another steep path, going up to a look out spot.  My legs are often reluctant to move, and make me pay for exertion, but I was showing them who is boss.  (Incidentally they are, but I am still glad I did it.)

 And the views across the valleys were definitely worth the spasms that the climb caused and is causing.  Aren't they just lovely?

Down to the ground level gardens again .

And up the path again to the car park.  Isn't it a delightful outing?