Tag Archives: topiary

Hortus Conclusus

15 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by in Horticulture, Poetry, Suttonford

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She barricaded her land with hurdles

after the yew tunnel was traumatised

by those encroaching nouveau riche neighbours

with their breeze blocks and concrete pool surround.

They didn’t appreciate her medlars

were medieval and her melon house

was the stairway to a cellarium.

Quince (photo)

Her quinces failed to impress them, or bless

them with rare quintessence of quietude.

Those meddlers called her eccentric, with her

quatrefoils and quirky quincunx planting.

Jibbering jackdaws in chimneys warned her

that someone was uprooting history;

that eight genus of lilac were being jinxed

and that her jargonelles were jeopardised.

Eight thousand snowdrop bulbs were under siege.

Her newly grafted damson came from roots

in an orchard she’d helped a parent plant

fifty years before.  Her jardinieres

nurtured joyous japonica bushes;

jeroboam-watered jonquils, jasmine,

but nothing was sacred to those next door.

In her tongue and groove conservatory,

she sat on the mouldering chaise longue

she had rescued from a suburban skip,

so wistful about her wisteria;

watchful of the adjacent “For Sale” sign.

Established yew can take a thousand years:

portions of it were folk her father knew.

But no one would abutt her butts again.

Archery's a Google hit!

Toxophily was the sport for ladies

who set their sights and achieved a bull’s-eye

with every fleched missile they targetted.

“It’s strange thatch spontaneously combusts,”

the loss adjusters said in their report.

“My topiary skills are improving,”

she mused, as their pantechnicon arrived,

to cackles of derision from her cowls.

“Now I’ll think my green thoughts in a green shade,”

she sighed. “Pruning is so satisfying.”             

 

* hortus conclusus: a garden enclosed