Memorials and beginnings !

 

I am used to prune the rose plants only after the dry petals have fallen to the ground. I find the process an emotional experience- thankfulness for their presence in the garden! At any time there are plants with memorials of the flowers in them. 

This is an in between time for the rose plants. After a flowering season, the plants prepare for the next crops of buds and flowers. 

The dried flowers too have a biography. They were buds once and became flowers, opening themselves to share colour, fragrance, and to give nectar and petals as feed for caterpillars. The flowers fed insects and bees to keep them alive. 

The flowers left behind a significant contribution through their presence. With dried flowers falling to the ground, they made the soil nitrogen rich. They keep the plant cycle alive. 

So they are memorials of self giving presence to nourish life in the garden.

The garden has new beginnings all the time. The  shoots, foliage and buds ready to be flowers usher in the new life in the garden!

The beginning brings promises for the future. However they remain vulnerable to insects and caterpillars who make the shoots, foliage and buds as their food to survive.  

Most plants survive the risk and buds become flowers !

The new beginnings bring new colours, fragrance and ornamental look in the garden. 

But for the beginnings, the garden will be bare without foliage, buds and flowers. 

The memorials and the beginnings bring a message that life in the garden is sustained by the soil underneath! The plants thrive and flower. The soil receives them back to itself when the petals fall to the ground. The soil nurtures another cycle of growth and flowering!

The soil is the home for plant life! We watch growth, memorials and beginnings in the garden!

A family is the home for humans. 

It is in a family human life begins on earth and leaves the history of beginnings and memorials!

How sacred is a family and a home on account of this!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)