May in an Wannabe English Garden

It was a little misty around the castle this morning.  OK, so that's not really our house on the left there, it's a painting of the side of a Derbyshire castle, supposedly the one used in the filming of The Princess Bride.  We had to buy it when told that, true or not.

Our brave house tries to live up to the standard of a real English garden. I try to give it encouragement by calling it something charming like "bungalow" or "cottage" but it is really nothing more than a daylight basement, built in 1946, with a few whistle-y windows and a suspected roof leak.  Call it what you will, it gets spangled up in May as rhododendrons go mad with blooms.  Early roses delight us.  The gentle drift of saxifrage blossoms speak up from where they've been hiding behind rocks.  Lupines thrust spires like wannabe French cathedrals. Hostas come out with fresh spring leaves, the sage is blooming a lusty blue, and Solomon's seal is a graceful arching dancer.

My favorite this time of year is the Cecile Brunner rose on the arbor and the rose trees up the brick path to the front door.  Walk under this arbor, up the brick path, in the front door, and leave your modern worries behind. Not much modern in here, we are all hand-me-downs and sentimental stuff, although the furniture insists I call them, "antiques".  I humor them, they are not really.

The apple tree has finished blooming by now and has set to work making future pies and applesauce. I know a little boy whose favorite food in all the world is "applesauth".  I don't mind calling things by whatever name is the favorite.  A little girl I know likes "pamplemousse" rather than what the grocery store terms a grapefruit.  How could you call such a pretty pink thing grapefruit?  Pamplemousse is its right and proper name.  My daughter finds herself scarred because she was a teenager before she realized that nobody else around here called a grapefruit pamplemousse.  Only her weird-o mother.  And about a few million French folk.

Reality has no place in a garden.  It is all dreams and hopes, from the moment you stick a seed or root stock in the ground.  It seems just the right sort of place for storytelling.  Come on in, I'll tell you a few.  What did you say your name was?  Sir Gallahad?  Guinevere? Buttercup? Great!