Gardens

We all love gardens, don't we? Whether that's designing, cultivating and spending time in our own or visiting some of the beautiful creations of others in public spaces or on country estates. One thing is for sure, though, the cultivating and tending part is a tough gig when you arrive at your eighth decade!

Monet in his garden at Giverny

Claude Monet (1840-1926), rightly celebrated as one of the foremost Impressionist painters, acquired a house with land at Giverny, fifty miles north-west of Paris, when he was in his mid-forties, after his first wife had died. It was to be a stable home for Monet, his children and eventually his second wife. He lived there  for the next forty years. As well as renovating the house and building his studio, he also spent decades with the help of family and friends transforming the garden into a botanical paradise in which to live and to paint. He bought more strips of land when he could afford to, and this horticultural project became a lifelong passion.

He is quoted as saying: "I am only good at two things, and those are painting and gardening. Everything I have earned has gone into this garden. Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. The more I live, the more I realise that the colours at Giverny are the most beautiful colours in the world. My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece."

If you've seen Monet's paintings you're probably familiar with his depictions of agapanthus, geraniums, irises, peonies, roses, water-lilies, willows, wisteria, garden paths, picnics under his trees, brilliant vistas. He painted the same views many times, trying to capture his impressions of the beauty around him. Of course the views were never actually the same, for the colours and light were different on each occasion. Ironically, for all his mastery of his craft, he burned many of his canvasses. Maybe that's how one preserves one's reputation for excellence! 

As he grew old, his sight began to fail him, a cruel affliction for one whose life had been all about experiencing and responding to what he saw around him. He still planned enhancements to his garden but now employed a team of gardeners to do the spadework for him. He loved nothing more than to walk around his garden, to share it with friends and visitors, to continue being inspired by its beauty. And he continued to paint under its spell, despite his failing eyesight, even enlarging his studio to accommodate the expansive canvases that he worked on during his final few fading years.

Monet's house and gardens were painstakingly restored after fifty years of neglect and became classified as a 'monument historique' in 1976.Nowadays Giverny is one of the most visited sites in France, outside of Paris. 

My own Blackpool back garden is due for a major make-over in the next few months. Out will go rotten old decking and concrete paving slabs. I want more nature, more greenery, flowers, herbs, bees and butterflies, terracotta pots, a tree  I'm trying to grow olive saplings from seed but I don't know if the climate is sufficiently conducive - that wintry west wind for instance. Like Monet in his seventies, it will have to be something I can tend to without overmuch back-breaking effort. Design is key, as is the budget. Wish me luck.

geraniums at Kythira in Greece

One thing's for sure, there will be lots of geraniums, as well as irises, lilies and roses. I'll sign off with the latest piece I've been working on.  I'm not sure if this is the poem's final flowering or not. Time will tell.

Geranium-365

Primordial and perennial, in a sun-kissed Kythira garden

from white-washed, rust-streaked tins watered at dusk,

Aphrodite's progeny branches and buds, then explodes

in profusion, red like blood, pink as passion. Incandescent

she comes once again, apparition more dazzling than flame 

from a time before earth was formed, hovering between 

the impossible and the inevitable, a fissile isotope fixing

to blow the world apart anew, shatter your flowering heart.

On a simple iron bedstead among twisted sheets we lie

savouring consummate peace, with the departing day framed

through blue shutters. By a trick of inverted light, a flush

of geranium red shafts itself across peeling walls and ceiling.

Lucretius, forefather of atomic thought, captured the effect

of her florid alchemy thus: "the heavens are all assuaged 

and pour forth torrents of light; the waves of the sea smile."  

In blue jeans you slip out to the yard, watering-can in hand.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Aphids & Aphorisms

When I think of gardens in the abstract, I have in mind Monet's various sumptuous impressionist renderings of his grounds at Giverny, or certain songs of Van Morrison featuring gardens all wet with rain. When it comes to gardens in the concrete (as my current one is - poor pun intended), I recall a bittersweet mix of long hours of back-breaking labour, digging, de-stoning, weeding, battling against rampant nature... and much shorter hours of admiring the results of said labours.

Gardening can be a very therapeutic endeavour. No less wise a man than Monsieur Voltaire exhorted us to cultivate our gardens as a means to achieving true contentment - but the rewards only come from toil, a waging of the constant battle. Admiring other people's gardens, enjoyable though it is, doesn't provide the same frisson. That deep, connected pleasure can only be won hands-on, and it's not easy.

The worst of it is the other life-forms one has to contend with: the sheer thuggery of slugs, those armies of aphids and plagues of blackfly that variously devour or infest the flowers and vegetables we coax and tend so lovingly. Note to God: aphids - bad invention!

The essayist, short-story writer and all-round wit Dorothy Parker was fond of claiming that she could immediately construct an aphorism out of any word anyone chose to pitch at her. I guess it became a party trick of hers. My favourite example is of the time someone called out 'horticulture'. Without missing a beat, Ms Parker shot back with this parodic gem: "you can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." Game, set and match. What a gal.

My second favourite newspaper headline ever is: Woman claimed dead body in garden was plant.
My favourite, from the Miners' Strike, triumphed by virtue of a priceless misprint: Flying pickets sent to other planets.

One day my concrete garden will be rampant with horticulture and then everything will be very lovely, with marigolds, red hot pokers and masses of geraniums in big olive oil tins painted white just like in a Greek taverna; maybe the odd tomato as well.

This week's poem is about one such geranium, pictured below. I promised as much a few blogs ago (Overwintering, 28/11/2015 to be exact) and I'm a man of my word (most of the time).

Neon Geranium

Neon Geranium
Electrifying flame of passion,
not red, not pink,
but some hot iridescence
in between,
pulsing on a spectrum
that entices dusty bees
to the lit paper petalry
of your pollen stores.
Mind-shimmerer,
fabulous, fire-sprouting meme
of returning seductions,
above your bright veined leaves,
long strident stalks,
you draw me in
on sultry summer afternoons
even though
you are redolent
of tomcats and tomatoes.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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