On Tuesday I was with a client with a cream labrador named Lucy. On Wednesday I was with a client with an almost identical lab. At one point during the day, my Wednesday client told me she’d been discussing with Lucy where to put her Alliums. For just a moment the days crossed over, and I seriously thought she was telling me that she’d been asking her dog for planting advice. I was reluctant to give up the mental image as it emerged that her cream lab is named Daisy, and Lucy is her gardening friend from England.
But it put me in mind of one of my favourite gardening lines of all time, written by Capt. W. E. Johns (of Biggles fame). He was out in the garden with his dogs when his neighbour approached, and started sneering at his nearby border of nasturtiums. Capt. Johns made some witty, scathing remark that sent his neighbour running. “Then” he writes, “the dogs, the nasturtiums and I laughed until we were nearly sick.”
I must remember to ask my Kelpie about my plans for a colonnade of crabapples. She might have a better idea.
Very amusing Michael. I told daisy she is famous now!
Credit where it’s due. Her placement of those alliums was truly sublime.
I LOVE the laughing nasturtiums. From now on I think I’ll listen to the conversations happening between the flowers…………….. and join them.