The donkeys are growing flowers on their farm,
treading quietly with flinted hooves,
driving seed to earth
and in their footsteps will root Catchfly, Fumitory,
Stinking Chamomile, Prickly Poppy.
Then will creep vole and field mouse,
air will be deep with flutter of lark, song of bee.
And in moonlight sweet as hay,
the hare will leap again and again.
Liz McPherson
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
The plot at the end of the lane
rests in a patch of everlasting summer,
fat lawn spread like a counterpane,
apples sun-steeped, berries rainbow-ripe.
Borage and thymes sprawl lazy with bees,
peonies linger in whispers. Plum, pear,
cherry blossom dance in dappled light.
Peas and beans dry in the potting shed
while, under its spidered window you,
in overalls of moss and meadow grass,
plant up next year’s lilies,
firming the soil with fingers of knotted oak.
Liz McPherson
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
Single worm,
now multiplying daily
in a dense green plastic dome
of kitchen waste beneath the plum tree.
Devouring vegetation,
feeding
on the sweat of leaves,
ingesting their fibre,
offloading rich humus,
and transforming carbon.
Avarice is their secret,
these writhing pink clusters,
trapped beneath a humming lid,
where odour and heat
oscillate like steam in the dark.
All those welded knots of
wise worms,
fattening
towards death,
till organic waste
reinvents as garden mulch.
Barbara Lawton
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
Defying its heaviness,
the circle face defaults to a water lily
in her withering hand,
and a sudden memory
of her father’s garden pond
trickles forward from childhood.
Through this case of metal and rust,
she’s floating back
to the days when dragonflies danced
on lustrous leaves
and white flowers opened
their waxy mouths
to the soaring sky,
every July.
Barbara Lawton
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
His grass is always greener
It’s like he paints it.
He surely has a draughtsman to draw
those lines on his lawn.
He must be out there early mornings
with his tape measure and spirit level.
His flowers colour co-ordinated,
like soldiers on parade,
not forgetting
those things for keeping the cats at bay.
And the timed sprinklers.
He gives me a nod when we pass,
never a smile.
I sit in my deckchair,
in the sun
with my glass of red
while he mows and mows.
I see his pacing shadow through the hedge.
I peruse the wild
abandon before me.
Some would say the grass needs a cut
but the dandelions look charming.
Here some bluebells,
there something I know not what, but pretty.
The bees seem to prefer my garden,
I think with a smile.
And my life, full of dodgy weeds, chaotic.
But perhaps more interesting than his perceived perfection.
Malcolm Henshall
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
The loveliness of lilies, the magnificence
of marigolds, the delight of dahlias
in my garden shrine. Forgive me for waxing
lyrical, but each year I fall in love
with the annual renewal of Nature’s bounty.
My heart sings with joy at the wild
abundance of this spectacle of flowers.
Is there anything in this world
more beautiful on God’s green earth?
Bill Fitzsimons
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
Strolling in the garden at midnight
under the pale ghost light of the moon,
a light breeze fanning me,
I feel a connection with the sheer
abundance of flowers and shrubbery,
the smell of growth around me.
Although I cannot see their colours,
I sense their vital presence,
their thirst for life and – yes – meaning.
Dahlias, pansies, geraniums, fuchsias
and white orchids in wild array –
a floral symphony playing
its silent night music.
Bill Fitzsimons
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
Nasturtiums grow below the hedge
And bloom in June, orange and red
Then by July, beneath the leaf
Are eggs – bursting and hatching
Caterpillars, flower killers, keen to tuck in
Wreaking disorder all over the border
Nasturtiums wilt, the blooms are doomed.
But when we sow, we certainly know,
Butterflies are what we grow.
Rosie Cantrell
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
The clematis and roses, still in bud,
almost fill the arches now.
Beds edged with nasturtium,
yet to break from their neat rows,
to blur the wide path’s tidy margins.
Not in that explosive,
jewelled way of the original,
but in an ordered, English way.
Regimented stripes of
French and African marigolds
shine, brash against the muted antirrhinums.
Beyond,
under leafing trees, dappled sun
paints spots of light and shade
over the tarmac track.
Tarmac gives way to small red tiles,
pruned olive trees,
a sign – ‘The Alhambra Garden’.
The stringent smell of yew and box.
Dry fountains punctuate a shallow trough –
Japanese cherry,
London Pride and hard balled peonies
deny the ambience of Moorish Spain.
In beds, halos of earth surround
socially distanced perennials
that hint at the riot Summer will bring.
I retrace my steps. Take the tarmac back
through native trees –
below their leafy canopy
a breeze catches daffodils in grass,
the song of birds.
I take out my phone,
capture this familiar scene –
more than beautiful,
in ways I’ve yet to understand, it feels important.
Cate Anderson
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
Among the pea sticks and neat rows of veg
A nun stoops low to tend the shooting plants.
A girl looks on, unseen beyond the edge
Of this bucolic scene, caught in the slant
Of late spring sunlight glancing through the leaves.
Arcadia amid the urban sprawl.
From her peripheral view the girl perceives
The tranquil lure of rules and vows and walls,
Freedoms removed, desires securely furled
And packed away from temptation and choice.
The price to pay for this seductive world?
The silence of her own distinctive voice.
Ah! So this is how, perhaps, her life could be –
She turns her back to face reality.
Cate Anderson
One of the Headingley Open Gardens collection. Click to see the full list
