Country Garden

There’s no particular symmetry to the real cottage garden, just a soft kind of chaos. Paths disappearing under petals, the best flowers often grow where you forgot you planted them, don’t they? Marigolds are FINE in Britain- they never seem to mind the rain. And chrysanthemums show up just as everything else is fading, a final blaze of colour before the frost. The oaks? Ancient and unhurried. It’s for anyone who’s ever left the weeds in place because they looked too pretty to pull.