fresh growth
There is great agitation in the garden in anticipation of summer. Plants develop at great speed and at some point the boundaries of which plant is what become blurred. The flower bed merges into a compact mass of leaves and stems with bright pops of color: pink bee balms here, large star studded nicotiana towering over everything there, clusters of cherry tomatoes and clumps of electric blue delphiniums further back. In a corner the navy blue butterfly bush throws flower bunches equally in every direction. Nature’s vegetal fireworks display.
Every year at this time one can tell if the garden is thriving or not. This year the garden is happy. The trellis is heavy with sweet peas. Cucumber plants bear sky blue flowers compliments of the adjacent morning glory. I pick tomatoes from a rose bush where fluffy white daisies peak their heads.
It rained a lot, so every plant took it upon itself to expand in every space available, wrapping around its neighbors, sneaking under adjacent greenery and growing taller than everything around it. At this point if you want to find out where their roots are, you have to unwind and follow their sappy stems like green Ariadne’s threads all the way to the ground.
A more disciplined gardener would find this meld disturbing, but I am not a disciplined gardener. I know that later in the summer when the growth enthusiasm cools down each plant will be clearly defined as an entity in and of itself and the incongruences will dissipate. Until then I will enjoy blue flowered cucumbers.
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