poems & gardens

  Remembering all the beautiful gardens I visited in the summer of 2019, when travelling more than five miles from home was still legal.   Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens are restored walled gardens in the Castle Bromwich area of Birmingham, run by volunteers. They include orchards with old apple varieties, pears and mulberries. An apple poem (first published in The Cannon's Mouth ): Comment t’appelles-tu? (or Comment Apple Two) Today you say you’ve learned some French – something to do with apple 2 and comments. I think I hear the windfalls snigger, their waspish thoughts, backchat of pips, remember Coxes are cousins of roses, which smell as sweet no matter what you call them. Your namesake again. Another Will, I tell you, split an apple with an arrow. You make your vinegar face, say you wish I’d called you Zak or Ethan. The scent of sap is faint. Ros Woolner

  Remembering all the beautiful gardens I visited in the summer of 2019, before I learned what an R number was. Benthall Hall is a National Trust property in Shropshire, not far from Ironbridge.      

  Remembering all the beautiful gardens I visited in the summer of 2019, when zoom was a word found mainly in comics and photography magazines. Winterbourne House and garden is on the University of Birmingham campus in Edgbaston. There are lawns, a terrace, flower borders, a nut walk, a shady pond with a picturesque bridge, a glasshouse with carnivorous plants and a walled cottage garden (I love seeing plants against old brick walls).