Gardens

Little pears

Wisteria provides a shady spot to sit

These white flowers look like frothy cream

A lilac bush gives off a heady scent

Pretty purple flowers

In Britain about eighty per cent of the population live in a house with a garden of some sort. In Italy only about twenty per cent of the population have a garden-Italy has so many mountainous regions that building land is precious and there are a lot more people living in blocks of flats. To be in a garden is always a pleasure, like being on holiday. Of course there is a lot of work involved in keeping it looking nice, but the rewards are great.
The only poem I can think of about gardens is by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), He sounds like he is thinking about the garden of a stately home, like a National Trust garden. He reminds us in the poem that everything started in a garden. Adam was a gardener in the Garden of Eden. Here is the first verse:-

The Glory of the Garden

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by,
But the glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old  thick laurels grow, along  the thin red wall,
You find the tool and potting sheds which are the heart of all,
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung pits and the tanks
The rollers ,carts  and drainpipes, with the barrows and the planks.



Rudyard Kipling ends his poem  like this:

Oh,Adam was a gardener and God who made him sees,
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,,
So, when your work is finished you can wash your hands and pray,
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away.

 

 

Lilacs in the evening give off a powerful perfume

A wheelbarrow is essential to a gardener

This song from the 50s is about an English country garden