Thresholds

Two days in Narnia, the snow inches thick, highlighting the silhouettes of Henslow’s trees against the January sky. We crunched our way round sometimes misremembered paths to discover  flowers hidden in the brilliant white of it. The Winter Garden colours still shine through, a poetry of Mahonia, Winter Sun, Silver Queen, Red Sentinel. Futher on, The Persian Ironwood has a mass of blood red stamens and when the snow lifts I am told it will blush in such a way we’ll see it from a distance.  This is the tree that speaks to me. Every time I think I’m ready to go home, I circle the systemic beds to stand underneath its tangle of dappled branches, all the colours of the Persian snakes.

Gardeners and Botanists seem to me a special people, not hoarders but generous to a fault. They plant trees for future generations, hold in their imagination what their skill and patience will become. I watched a meadow sown in sand and snow. Whilst putting up the fence they tell me how it’s done, wearing their knowledge lightly but with passion.

This was always going to be extraordinary, even without the gift of snow.

Ann Gray