51. Crocosmia

As July draws to an end the crocosmia is in flower on either side of the bog-wood throne. Perhaps there is some irony in this vibrant African flower being one of the annual heralds of the Celtic festival of Lughnasa - the start of the harvest season at the beginning of August.

I am struck by the different time-scales of the scene. The limestone rock was formed 350 million years ago; the bog oak and bog yew of the throne were living trees 5,000 years ago, and the crocosmia will flower for just 2-3 weeks.

Its full name is Crocosmia 'Lucifer', but there is nothing devilish about this bright, hot red that seems to say 'Notice me and enjoy me now, the year is turning, I will be gone again soon'.

50. Raspberries

Raspberries and basket swings in the Imbolc Garden

It is high summer. The grasses are seeding, the blackcurrants ripening and the raspberries are sweet and delicious. Lughnasa and harvest are coming soon.

There is a magic to walking out into the Garden, picking raspberries and eating them. I am constantly surprised that so few visitors pick the fruit, even though it is within easy reach. I trust this is due to well-mannered restraint in a public garden rather than a reluctance to eat unwashed, foraged food.

There are other tasty nibbles nearby  - wild marjoram in the meadow area, the first cherries ripening and tiny strawberries in the herb beds. And all these are native plants, the wild fruitfulness of nature.

Dessert

As a child I remember making pretend dinners out of petals and serving them carefully on large magnolia leaves. Today I made myself a little plate of dessert on a hazel leaf: this one was real, not pretend, and it tasted wonderful.

The season of true abundance is starting. 

49. Meadow flowers 2 - meadowsweet and purple loostrife

Down by the lochán one of my favourite plant combinations is in bloom - the creamy-white flower-heads of meadowsweet intermingled with the elegant spikes of purple-loosestrife. They are the tall, stylish fashionistas of late summer meadows, commonly growing together as they both like damp soil. Here they are nestled along the edge of the lochán with rushes to their left and iris leaves on their right.

Meadowsweet lives up to its name. Its strong scent led to its use as a strewing herb, spread on floors to freshen and perfume a room. Eventually, science caught up with tradition and found that meadowsweet contains salicylic acid which is a natural disinfectant. The common drug asprin is derived from the salicylic acid found in another plant of damp soil, willow.  But today the cure for my slight headache is visual, not herbal, and instead I will watch the bumble bee - just visible on the tallest loosestrife - as it bumbles around, enjoying the flowers.

48. Raindrops

I walked over to my desk and found a poem left there - a haiku, written by a friend and her daughter visiting the Garden. It felt like a little piece of grace falling with the raindrops.

'Wild raindrops fall
Ripples disrupt the surface
Leaf lady still sleeps'

In the midst of summer energy and growth, a moment of quiet beauty.

I can't pick up raindrops, so I let the            poem-paper absorb some of them and will keep it with my natural objects.

Leaf lady still sleeps

47. Native poppies and corn marigolds

The native poppies have come out to join their Middle Eastern cousins, the ladybird poppies, creating a fabulous blaze of summer colour.

Growing with them are the corn marigolds, another lovely annual that used to be common in fields of wheat and barley and which now flourishes happily in the Garden.

Yellow and red, red and yellow, sunshine and fire. Pure happiness and joy.

46. Patio rose

It rained all day today, a steady, drenching, puddle-forming rain; sometimes lighter and sometimes heavier but never stopping. It is unusual, even here in the West of Ireland, for it to rain so continuously.  


The Garden literally soaked it all up, and perhaps it enjoyed a rest from all the people. The only flowers admired by visitors today were the pink patio roses visible from inside the café. The petals are almost white in the middle, shading to a deep pink at their outer rim - a bright, cheeky colour that lifted the muted greys of the day.

Finally, the rain stopped. I look out of my window in the late evening and see not pink, but green - a rain-forest of verdant greens in the ash trees, birch trees, grasses, hedgerows, herbs and much more. Perhaps I can find some gratitude for the rain.

45. Bog pine with turf

Bog pine with piece of turf

Walking on a track through the bog just down the road from the Garden I pick up a white, bone-like piece of wood. It's a fragment of an ancient pine tree that was buried and preserved in the peat, and then exposed by local people cutting turf for fuel.



On the nearby Connemara coast at Barna and Spiddal, ancient pine trees appeared after severe winter storms washed away layers of the beach last year. The trees are thought to be about 7,000 years old, part of a forest that stretched under what is now Galway Bay. 

Bog-pine roots exposed on the beach

It is like stumbling on the skeleton of a long-lost landscape, a bone here, a bone there, telling an old and fascinating story if only we knew how to listen to it. 

Bog-pine stump exposed by turf-cutting

44. Hart's-tongue fern

On a warm, sultry day the secret places under the hazel trees are cool and dark.

Clumps of hart's-tongue fern flourish here in the shade, their roots reaching into pockets of moist soil between rocks and tree roots.

Only a few steps away, Little Meadow has become an even more beautiful carpet of orchids and other sun-loving flowers that grow on the thin, much dryer soil.

The fern could not grow in the open meadow and orchids could not live in the shade of the hazel trees.

Each plant flourishes in its own habitat, and I wonder what that says to us about our lives. Are we flourishing? Are we in the right habitat?