The sun is peeping through the cold gauze of cloud overhead – just enough to make the crocus in the lawn give a half-hearted smile. These have, so far (and touch wood) escaped the destructive attentions of the sulphur crested cockies. They gnawed at a few early on. Come to think of it, they gnawed at them on very day that I wrote about my various attempts at controlling them (see newsletter 16/7). I know that, as I went out immediately after writing to set my protection plan in motion and found several crocus in the prostrate position in which the cockies are convinced they look best. You’d think I’d learn, but here I am, writing of them again.
There’s something about these crocus days. Today hardly rates as one, but there’s a few coming up on the long-range forecast – days when the crocus stretch out wide and bask, almost theatrically, in the sunshine. I can’t think of another moment when my deep, simple, silent pleasure in the garden most closely matches my desires from it, or that most reflects and fulfils the garden longings that somehow settled on me, age 17.
I can’t help myself striving to achieve greater, more complex effects with plantings designed to synchronise flowering times and to wow with magical combinations of colour and form, but none provide the contentment and satisfaction of sun-drunk crocus on a sparkling winter’s day.
In other news, don’t forget that Wilding evening on Thursday Aug 15 in Melbourne, raising funds for Global Gardens of Peace. Ed Snodgrass from the US and our own Tim Sansom will talk us through this new movement, and how it might – and will! – start shaping the way we garden here. More information and tickets here.
May this week bring you many crocus days – with or without the flowers after which they’re known!
Michael