Thursday, October 30, 2008
:the poppies have moved in:
There used to be this charming white art deco house on the edge of the CBD which I would pass on my walks to town. Inhabited by an old lady, it had the kind of labour-intensive cottage garden that can only be achieved from years of dedicated gardening. I liked to pass by it and steal a bit of lavender to sniff, admire the poppies…
One day, the house was empty. I presumed the old lady had died and felt a little sad about that in that way that you might about someone you didn’t know, but was somehow part of your environs. Soon after that, it was put up for sale and a while later, a SOLD sticker appeared. Then, a couple of months after that I was walking towards the place and there was a sight which stopped me in my tracks. The white house was gone! Flattened. Bulldozed. A grey concrete pad and the front and back steps were all that remained. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut - even though I had no connection to the house, beyond admiring it and the garden...but there was something about the sudden-ness of the demolition, the violence of it.
The bulldozer was parked in the corner of the section, and I could tell that they would be flattening the garden next. I couldn’t stand the idea of the beautiful, cottage garden getting ploughed over to make a neat concrete section for some bland business or a car park. ("Pave paradise and put up a parking lot” and all that.) So that evening, I roped in the support of my long-suffering husband and children and we drove down there after dinner. Taking care that no one around was paying much attention, we set to - rescuing as many plants as we could. I uplifted some of the smaller lavenders, some nandina bushes, some perennial daisies - all of which survived the move. We dug things up until the boot and back seat were full of ‘stolen’ (I like to say liberated) plants and taking one last look around, said goodbye to the garden.
Sure enough, a week or two later the garden was bulldozed and is now a big, bare dirt patch awaiting ‘development’.
Anyway, what I’m getting to is that I also dug up a lot of the red poppies - they were just about to flower. I didn’t know, however, that poppies cannot stand being moved once they are established and despite my best efforts they all fell over limply and died. I thought the poppies were the one failure of my guerilla gardening rescue.
But look! a year later, and the poppies have come back. All around my garden, mostly nowhere near where I planted their parents, poppies are appearing. Beside my doorstep, in cracks, under the lemon tree, in the vege garden…
And because I am fey, romantic and sentimental - I am most happy about these poppies...inexpressably happy…
Have you ever wondered what a poppy sees all day? In my excitement about the poppies, I took some ‘poppy’s-eye-view’ photos. (Whilst no poppies were harmed in this daring photo shoot - a certain 36 year old woman did badly graze one knee.)
What a poppy sees:
Sky:
More sky:
And more sky:
And the corner of the shed:
And the movement of the clouds across the sun.
She liberates things all the time. For a good cause of course. I would like to be so brave but suffer perrennial embarrassment. I have been known to keep on walking as if I’m not hers because I blush so heartily whilst the liberation occurs.
