What Remains

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My garden is full of the leftovers of summer and autumn. Clumps of curled and dried-out leaves, seed heads (many now empty of their cargo of seeds) and, here and there, the tattered remnants of flowers, all create an untidy patchwork. But that untidiness is a protection to the life lurking within: insects are hibernating in it and, below, the soil and the creatures that inhabit it are protected from the effect of heavy winter rains.

Everything is going through the long wait for spring. I won’t tidy up the dead growth until all the little lives it shelters are active again. By then there will be new leaves beginning to push up through the soil and the first spring bulbs will be in flower.

Meanwhile the frost makes patterns on the remains of last year’s plants. Old leaves are finely edged in white and the ghosts of past flowers appear to be encrusted with tiny white seed beads. (Above: a tiny skeletonised flower of a hydrangea has become encased in a coating of icy frost. Below: tiny bead-like frost crystals decorate what’s left of a clump of aster daisies.) The seemingly insignificant oddments of the garden year are enough for the frost to create its ephemeral magic. ❄