I don't know if life is an illusion but this year I am going to try and notice it more; and my back garden seems as good a place as any to begin.
An easy thing to notice is this Lenten Rose hybrid flowering earlier than usual. Indeed, it is one of only a few things in flower at this time. My garden is largely brown and bare - and thanks to that I actually notice things that I might not if it were all blooming.
For instance would I have noticed the small purple berries on the shrubby evergreen honeysuckle, Lonicera pileata? There may not be many, but they are there - though you may have to click on the picture to see them.
Would I have stopped to admire the bark on the Yew (Taxus baccata) stump that was so inexpertly cut by some predecessors of mine? Maybe it is their faces I imagine I see in the markings?
Even empty pots look good to me just now . . .
. . . including the ones that in the summer I bemoan as impractical because of their narrow bottoms have an appealing patina to me.
The Elaeagnus pungens is beginning to reward me for having summer-pruned the stems that had reverted to green.
In the grey air and brown ground I find an honest beauty in the plain green leaves of the Irish Ivy, Hedera hibernica.
And the longer I look the less plain they seem.
I can't help but notice what is going on in my little plastic greenhouse. This is Garlic which I planted in the autumn. This is from a bulb that came from France - from the garden of a good friend's sister. Some I ate, some I am growing - or rather, it is growing.
Patience is required before I'll notice much happening here - Dwarf Broad Bean 'The Sutton' sown in pots on the first day of this here new year.
Surviving all this rain, and my attendant neglect, are the seedlings of Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi); Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) and Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea).
In the ground, even though it is trying to hide under the Bugle (Ajuga reptans) is an emerging shoot of the daffodil Narcissus 'Tresamble'.
Shoots are everywhere (slight exaggeration) - this is the common snowdrop Galanthus nivalis.
Over here, obviously of course, this is a completely different snowdrop: Galanthus elwesii.
Meanwhile, this may look like an unweeded patch to you but to me it is now and soon will clearly be:
- Lungwort - Pulmonaria angustifolia 'Munstead Blue'
- Wood Avens - Geum urbanum
- Quaking Grass - Briza media.
These unpromising looking emerging leaves are actually friends of our native woodland plant, Lesser Celandine. This will have dark brown/purple rosettes of leaves beneath bright yellow flowers and is called Ranunculus ficaria 'Brazen Hussy'.
Back in the potting shed, looking through the reflections of the window, it is not always so clear what is going on. This unwatered, supposedly resting tender zonal geranium (Pelargonium) has decided to put out a pink flower in January.
So for me, this year the plan is to spend even more time than normal drinking tea in my back garden and try to notice what is going on all round me: to appreciate the moment and, well, be here now. I might even try it with life.
George Harrison, being a more experienced gardener and probably a better Beatle than I, can say it better than I can - so he can have the last words.
