Formal Gardens

Butchart Gardens in Victoria British Columbia, Canada has claim to the beautiful gardens you see here. Once, many years ago, I visited these gardens with two lady friends and we walked the paths, took pictures each step of the way as we marveled at the awesome beauty before us. When I returned and was working on my second story poem book, "Sights and Sounds Traveling Around" I wrote:

Formal Gardens

"Whenever we visit formal gardens/ we see a perfect show/ God's beauty surrounds us/ as the flowers seem to glow/ The talent of the gardener/ who manipulates the ground/ mulching, weeding,/ as he plants seeds all around. Rock beds, grass of green/ pavements to walk and be seen/ looking, looking everywhere/ breathing in the fragrant air/ The colors, like the rainbow,/ bring pleasure to our sight/ the shrubs, the trees sway in the breeze/ making everything all right.

At the time I titled it "Bouchard Gardens" and only when I received the e-mail yesterday with so many beautiful pictures did I realize the spelling in my book should have been "Butchart Gardens" . . . having a little French gene or two, my 'bouchard' sounds good to me and it is much to late to change the title in the book. I think Mrs. Butchart would have been pleased to see the pictures of her garden in my book and the story poem that I wrote to show my appreciation for all of her hard work. I wonder if she had intended to have formal gardens, or was her love of flowers just a natural progression after seeing one beautiful bud knowing she could not stop until she planted as much of a variety as she could. It makes me think of 'Pa' who had a sixty by sixty city lot and had the gnarled hands of a gardener. I wrote a story about him and his garden in a small genealogy booklet I made for my children when I introduced them to the yard I grew up in and the wonderful man who tended that garden. There was absolutely nothing that wouldn't grow in his yard from the beautiful beds of flowers, to fruit trees, all kinds of summer and winter vegetables, a grape arbor and a tiny chicken shed with climbing roses. I was so lucky to have this yard as my play ground even if I didn't like weeding and picking up the hedges as they were trimmed. If I didn't work, I didn't get paid and if I didn't get paid I couldn't go to the ten cent movie on Saturday afternoon and buy some penny candies on the way. Come to think about it, all that work did me good as I am now a 'clip' artist here in my own gardens.

I hope you have a lovely yard with flower and vegetable beds, and that you take time to tend them. If not, buy a round tub and plant some flowers and vegetables and enjoy the fruits of your labor. We have a storm coming in today and the sky is pewter, no sign of wind, as yet, but I have high hopes our incoming storm will be a doozy and blow in majestic turbulence to tell us winter has arrived.