I trudge the wheelbarrow down the garden path, peering over the pile of dried stalks, ubiquitous cutch grass and various invasive roots that travel the underground garden subway. I calculate the height of the pile to reach the proverbial elephant's eye, - at least...... and a large elephant at that... I like that word "ubiquitious" as it pertains to cutch grass, - the SOUND of it seems so relevant to its sly and pushy ways. Ubiquitous, ubiquitous, I mutter, as I prepare to do battle.

These underground travelers I speak of have set up way stations where from they make an ascent to the daylight and the sunshine. For some reason the Yarrow seems to have business wherever the Iris have established themselves, and send emissaries. I look with dismay at the leafy spikes that are pushing their way up through the corms.

The glowing orange lanterns of the Physalis brighten an autumn day, but they too are rampant in their travel habits, and I swear that given time they could turn up half a mile away, - laying their own tracks three feet below as they go!


They must cultivate the Wild Buttercup as traveling companions. They arrived in the New Garden with the Japanese Peony, and before that they journeyed from #2 Son's Penticton garden. In my zeal to dig up the Buttercups I forgot about the Peony, and had to quickly replant their roots with the long ghostly shoots that had been reaching for the sun.



I search in vain for the first Violet, - in the Lost Garden they would be opening their tightly clustered buds under the old apricot tree, amid the lawn and the little apricot seedlings. The Hellebores are the only flowers in bloom, here in the new garden, but I note the golden promise along the branches of the Forsythia, and the shiny stubs of spring bulbs.



It is a soft and tender day, - I am wondering if I can seduce Husband into going for a drive to see what is happening at Ginty's Pond........