NOW CURRENTLY BACK INTO GARDENING AS AN ESSENTIAL PURSUIT, I REMEMBERED THOSE SUMMERS’ ALTER EGOS. THOSE CONTRIBUTING ‘GARDENERS’ OF A FEW YEARS AGO WHO WERE ESSENTIALLY MYSELF IN ALTERNATIVE/MULTIPLE ROLES.

I ENJOYED THE CHALLENGE OF GETTING A BRAMBLE, IVY, WEEDS FILLED CHAOTIC MESS OF A GARDEN INTO SOMETHING WORKING NICELY.

FROM THIS:

TO THIS………..

YOU CAN ENLARGE ANY OF THE SMALL PHOTOS BELOW BY TAPPING ON THEM. CHEERS.

SO A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY ALTER EGO FRIENDS. THEY HELPED ME ACHIEVE THIS LOVELY PLACE THAT IS FRANKIE THE FELLA CAT’S NIRVANA PLACE AND THE ONE, ON HIS FIFTY FEET HARNESS/LEAD, TO GET TANGLED UP IN…….

MY ADOPTED ROLES AS A GARDENER…….

Bartholomew.

The awesome Bartholomew Braithwaite Benjamin Browne, the Planner. Who keeps changing the story on an hour by hour basis. Because the overall teacher, Mother Nature, actually knows best. And Bartholomew is known to listen to superiority in all things.

Bartholomew Braithwaite Benjamin Browne

The most awesome, yet humblest,

Gardener known.

Changes ideas hour by the hour

As Mother Nature shows him

Amazing flowers.

Deliberates deeply

On which to include.

Chooses Borage to marry

His current mood.

‘Better suited and booted’

He cries in delight.

Then changes his mind again.

Overnight.

‘Its colour palette will stand proudly

Under the sun.

But Blue Borage will wilt

Once the rain has begun.

It’s dance in the rain

Will start with a bow

But will then get stuck

Permanently, positionally

In Kowtow’.

Better a Cornflower choice to be made?

Put Borage, the subservient,

In the suitable shade’.

‘No!’ cries Bold Borage.

The Garden Centre you mention

Sell sticks that will help me

Stand to attention.

There are ones you can’t see

The ones they call pea sticks.

They’re green and slender.

Not too thick’.

Bartholomew Braithwaite Benjamin Browne,

Listens, as usual,

With adopted frown.

Strokes chin and considers

The logic of science

He agrees, he nods.

Yes. He’s compliant.

He bows in Homage

To the beautiful Blue

With superior knowledge.

Who knows its own truths.

‘With my boldness I’ll give courage

With my colour I’ll uplift.

I’ll help fight your fears

With my generous gifts’.

Bartholomew won over

Is of now single mind.

Jumps into his VeeDub…and drives….

With pea sticks to find.

The Rest of the Gardening Team.

Walter.

The tenacious Walter Workaholic Whimplethorpe, the Workhorse and full on get his sleeves rolled up, but is tired upon tired coz he’s older. But wants to provide his input to the overall team effort. Sometimes ‘things’, just the strangest visitations of unlooked for and unwanted ‘things’, get in the way.

Tenacious is

As tenacious tries

But it’s fighting with sciatica

And the brassicas

Are suffering

Because the buffering

Of pain

Is present and active

Once again.

A later in life

Birthday gift

To a gardener

Humbly given

Because he’s simply told

‘You’re simply old….

Whimplethorpe the Driven’.

First name, Walter

Can only alter

The tactics

And stands erect

With no hose

But still manages

Because he chose

To water

His plants…..

With his copious supply

Of tears.

The Gardening Team.

Charles.

The sit back, smile and think he’s oh so clever Charles Creativity Chuttlington, the Designer. But he is, in actuality, a novice. An infant with eyes wide open wishing. Designs, he realises, are fluid entities. And other people, as valued friends, can gently say ‘Lovely……but have you considered?’ And Charles being otherwise Bartholomew will nod humbly and say ‘Nope! But willing to go, as said, indeed otherwise’.

The Gardening Team.

Reginald.

The veritable Very Reverential Reginald Radsbottomley, the Recycling Philosophist. Needs to understand consequences. As his lovely wife has shown him. Her Wholefood Shop customers, who are ecologically minded and driven, always question the ethics and realities of Planet Green. The customers? Get it both right and wrong. Everyone has to realise, Reginald considers, that there has to be compromises alongside. Weighing up the positive and negative outcomes.

The Gardening Team.

Thomas.

Or Thomas Trawler Tarpingood who shall be trawling both books and the internet for inspiration and ideas and finding the concepts of biodiversity and Hugelkultur.”

HUGELKULTUR LAYERING PROCESS BELOW.

A very nice link to the virtues of Borage:

https://foliagefriend.com/borage-flower-meaning/#:~:text=In essence, borage flowers are,to feel uplifted or energized.