Tuesday 3 June 2014

Little things


Someone was asking how the back garden of our compact but adorable city apartment was doing, so here it is. This photo is so appallingly bad that I have not even bothered to improve it with an edit.

I cannot begin to tell anyone who has not experienced Night-Scented Stock, how wonderful this modest little flowering plant is.

Every Spring I sow a handful of tiny seeds into a bit of earth, then a few weeks later I am rewarded with the glorious, godly, powerful but wistfully transient perfume, and I don't even have to go to the trouble of boiling up whale vomit. If the last observation seems a little cryptic to you, go to Sarah's last post for an explanation.

This morning, I went into the kitchen to find that the flowers had spent all night filling up the room with it, and by the time I got to them, they had ceased production and were curled-up to sleep after the night-shift.

You know those Elizabethan paintings of handsome, young men standing in meadows of little English flowers, or the Minoan, Greek and Roman wall-paintings of swallows flying over wild flower fields? These are the celebrations of seasonality, and the comfort and reassurance that they bring is refreshed every year, and have been for thousands upon thousands of years.

I despise Disney for what they did to Winnie the Pooh, and I despise the Dutch flower industry for what they have done to the simple but profoundly deep pleasures of seasonality.

19 comments:

  1. Hello Tom:

    We could not agree more about 'seasonality'. Happily that is one thing The People's Republic does, by and large, respect, certainly where fruit, vegetables and flowers mostly are concerned.

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    1. That's good. No Kenyan green beans for you this Christmas, then.

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    2. No. Nor any day actually! But, we do have bananas all year round....progress?

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  2. I'll come and dig your back garden, if you'll come and dig mine!

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    1. Do you know, I am almost tempted by that offer, especially now I know what you Blackbirds have for breakfast.

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  3. Dear Tom,
    at the same time as you I posted the photos from my balcony - reveling (not rivaling, I didn't know that you would publish something) in the beauty of my roses and their scents. Even on a balcony I manage to avoid Dutch 'plastic' flowers - though I have not the same possibilities as in my (lost...) garden.
    Night-scented Stock has a wonderful fragrance - as have cloves/pinks, the little ones, old roses and night tabacco plants.

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    1. Sounds lovely - especially the lost garden.

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  4. A man of strongly held beliefs!
    I picked a stalk of pinks, to hold the cinnamon smell under my nose as I did when I was a little girl walking to school. Once in the house my cat demanded them. I don't know where he took them.

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    1. Your cat? Demanded? Oh well, I suppose it had its reasons.

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    2. Your right. He stands on his back feet and implores.

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  5. Not a great view from the window is it?

    I note that you now have 130 followers.

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    1. That is the good bit - a Victorian roof arrangement butting up against a 17th century gable. The bit out of shot is Waitrose, built in the 1980s. We had a good view of the Camden hills before that bloody thing was put up. Yes, 130. Well spotted.

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  6. I do agree about seasonality Tom - especially where flowers are concerned - but if one applies it to everything then we would be left with such boring vegetables for a few months each year. But I do try not to buy flowers out of season. Love the smell of n s s.

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    1. We survived with those boring vegetables right up until about 1970, and I for one wouldn't mind turning the clock back as far as fresh, uncanned foodstuffs go. We shun root vegetables every month until Christmas, and we don't do much soaking of dried stuff any more. I wouldn't mind, especially at the price.

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  7. Blogger - or my server - is playing up tonight and I have become bored with waiting 30 seconds for it to decide if it wants me to even look at your posts, let alone comment.

    Hence my lack of comments. I'll catch up later.

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  8. I've never heard of these. It's so pretty, reminds me of a wildflower.....my favorites. Simple and sweet.

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  9. Thank you for posting! That little clay tray (?) is just perfect for apartment gardening - compact but adorable.

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    1. Yes - I coveted that little planter for about two years, then finally acquired it, perfectly legally.

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