Joy

Foto lievevrouwebedstro

I always enjoy our garden. It gives me joy, and sometimes amazement. Amazement because this month there are small yellow flowers that I never have seen in the garden before. A splash of colour in the garden, which is at this time of year still barren and dull. It is Winter Aconite, maybe the tubers came to our garden with a clump of Snowdrops from the garden of my in-laws. Snowdrops bloom in abundance right now. Winter flowers are flowering in February this year, and that isn’t surprising, but the Camelia also has flowers which is unusual, normally its flowers appear in April, or May.

The garden is filled with plants I love, like for instance Sweet Violet, a rather inconspicuous little plant with heart-shaped dark green leaves, and mauve or white flowers which are beautiful against the background of its reddish, dark green leaves. In summer, the plants show their seed-pods that open up in three parts. Because of this,  Sweet violet was in centuries past known as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

Another beautiful plant, that in my opinion should not be regarded as a weed, is Bedstraw. In spring, leaves of this species appear like little green stars in the garden, it is lovely next to the dark leaves of the Sweet Violet. Sometimes it is scattered all over, but sometimes it forms a tidy small bed of little stars, quite spontaneously. It has little white flowers that appear in round white bunches. When dried the leaves of this plant have a pleasant herby odour, hence the name. It was used for perfuming laundry, in times before the invention of scented laundry softener.

March 2017

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