Memorium for a Lost Garden

Spring in the Garden

When we moved to the Back Pasture we left behind five bedrooms and our treasured garden. The new owners are fine people, but Garden Philistines. We went to capture some seeds from the perennial sweet peas along the fence line at the old place and I mourned the flowers and shrubs, struggling to get through this hot summer without adequate water. The house has been made into apartments, - perhaps one of them will be rented to a gardener who will take pity on the honey suckle and trumpet vines, the magnolia tree and all the plants in the border along the fence.

The sweet peas we want to perpetuate were planted on the orchard that my husband's grandfather started when he returned from the Alaska Gold Rush, and they still grow on the original orchard. We have carried seed carefully from place to place, and they grow tentatively in their first year in the new garden, here on the pasture.

Our new garden has been a delight to create, but in my memory are all the wonderful hours I spent, early in the morning and in the cool of the evening, revelling in the care of the flowers, - the roses and iris and phlox and daisies. I remember with love all the trees that my husband planted, - dozens and dozens on the three acres that made up the property. Almost all gone now, - yanked out to accommodate a market garden or fruit trees. Alas, alas....