in desperation you thought of beauty

As is my wont, I have been tripping over odd old things in the garden.

Only now, in spring, can the place be named

At last.

Trust that there is a tiger

Hey, look what I found lurking in my camera:

who moves in the forest leaving no scent

The less said about this past weekend, the better, really. It was too hot. We spent most of one day helping an old Lady dog on her last journey, and then condoling with the one who had to go home without her.

The other history is silent

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made a number of out-of-print publications available online (and free!) via their web site.

Among those that may be of interest to friends of the Belfry are these:

The touch of a thorn is a wry, deep telling

A couple of years ago (longer?) I started on a post or two about one of my favourite roses, the Rosa Mundi (Rosa gallica versicolor), touching on history of the variety and origins of the name, and all that sort of thing.

It turned into a thicket. I have a three-page document of sentence fragments and notes to go look things up stored in my Google Docs, and every time I try to resolve one question, three more present themselves. What I really need is two weeks in a good academic library with no other things to think about, and that ... is not likely to happen this year.

But the rose is blooming again and looking rather lovely.

sueded upturned bells

If you were to ask me how I am, right now, and I were to give you an honest answer, what you'd get is something like 'augh ... busy ... work ... you know ... ' with accompanying facial expressions and arm-waving.

poised like a choir on the verge of singing

I think what I love most about snowdrops is the splash of green on the tepals.

all the worthy treasure of Mycenae

Several years ago, as something of a lark, I planted a dozen corms of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus).

Why on earth would I do such a (seemingly foolish) thing? Have I not buried enough money in the ground, never to see it again?

as if a flower should yearn to sing

So here's something we haven't seen much of recently: poorly exposed photos of things growing in my garden!

Something there is that doesn't love a wall

Central to the nature of gardens is enclosure. This enclosure may be achieved with wall, fence, or hedges formal and informal, but the enclosure must be. The very word garden comes from a Proto Indo-European root that means wall or fence.

Ripe was the drowsy hour

My excuse, as always, is that work is busy. I sometimes think that is not very satisfactory, as excuses go, but the sad truth is there are only so many hours in a day, some of which must be spent earning one's keep in the world, and when you have spent 9 hours reading documents, writing documents, and sitting on your hands so you do not roll up some of those documents and beat your colleagues with them, spending your off hours writing more seems less appealing than, say, poking yourself in the eye.

Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-born lily flower

Regular visitors to The Belfry have heard of my fondness for martagon lilies and the vicissitudes I've experienced trying to grow them for myself.

où dort la mélancolie

I had a goal, once, of trying to grow as many authentically mediaeval plants as possible in my garden.

flower and leaf that color every drop they hold

I think I have mentioned that oakleaf hydrangeas are always doing something beautiful.

Behold.

best of all are the words that shape the leaves

Soon. Very soon.

And couch supine their beauties

This is a lily bulb.

from rock-hard drought to rainforest jungle

Last week was not a great one for much of anything here at Belfry HQ, for which you may blame rain, mosquitoes, and a touch of the plague.

let your shadow lengthen on the sundials

So what's blooming at Belfry HQ?

With howl of winds and roar of streams and beating of the rain

Well. All things considered, it wasn't that bad.