Today there’s blue sky, and the garden is calling. Garden centre sale ends of Erigeron to green up in the front garden, and silvery Helichrysum italicum and lavenders to take their place beneath the freshly pruned and retied rose.
It’s budding green and pink tints in arches over the fence, and closeup nestles of aphids roam fresh and green among the new growth. From the cutting I brought in they marched purposefully across my desk, manoeuvring their takeover still in the dead of winter.
With the original aphids now washed down the sink, the cuttings are inspected daily, though they’d no doubt be happier in soil than the tropically adorned glass they’re sitting in here. But their joyful new growth is keeping them here, so clean and bright, miraculously emerging from the scarred and battered stems. In the spirit of compromise, I will keep one inside with me, and make the most of the sunshine today to get the others into soil.
a year in the garden 