Garden Centre

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Water gardening

Every morning that I can (and if I’m not running around Chelsea Flower Show getting blisters, that’s most of them) I eat my second breakfast (yes, I’m a hobbit) by the pond. Of course in winter it’s more a case of hopping from foot to foot while sipping tea from a thermal mug held in fingerless gloved hands, but in spring and summer I can relax and really take in the extra dimension that water brings to a garden.

To begin with, there are reflections, shrubs looking at themselves in the water like a mirror, flowers doubled in their beauty; then there is the wildlife: mayflies and damselflies, midges, frogs and fish and our elusive newt or newts (we don’t know how many we’ve only ever seen one at a time and that at rare intervals), birds and pond skaters. And there’s also the microclimate; the extra dimension that cool, shaded water brings, with the ability to grow marginal and pond plants, to feel the haze of moisture coming off the water in the heat of the day, and the gentle chill it carries in the morning hours even when the rest of the garden feels sunny.

Above all though, there’s the sound, the rippling music of the cascade, the tiny movements of fish and insects and the buzzing, susurrating, chirping or gulping they produce, and the sound of even the gentlest breeze moving through the stems of water plants.

All of which go superbly with a cup of tea and a bowl of muesli …

Labels: garden ponds, water gardening, water plants

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:40 AM

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