Night Scented Stock in the allotment garden of Nowhere in particular
Summer evenings in ‘the allotment garden of Nowhere in
particular’ sometimes see a peculiar dappled shade cast over the lower end of
the site. The sun sets and dips to the west, over the Lea reservoirs nearby; the light is cooled and filtered by the evening chorus of trees and birds – a
surround sound of swaying branches and shrill notes that ebb to melodic chants,
whispers and reflections calling for calm and a settling down.
A gardener
might, for a moment, forget what has not been done on the never-ending list,
the quest for control, and so submit to the charms of a garden in-between.
I wonder if I found the garden in-between the senses – a
no-sense (?), a non-sense (?), an un-sense (?) of sights, sounds, textures,
tastes and smells immersed in a peculiar moment? Perhaps it was a fragrance
that enhanced and enabled the nonsense most of all; that made a charming moment
of the garden? I was adrift on currents of scent, the perfumes of ‘Night
Scented Stock’ in particular. While meandering between the raised beds, the island
communities of plants, the spaces between them dissolving and
diffusing, I felt at peace with my different and often conflicting senses of the
place.
To enjoy the fragrant charm was to relinquish any notion of
control by those senses that dominate by drawing on ignorance, prejudice, habit,
ritual and routine. It was the best note on which to leave ‘the allotment
garden of Nowhere in particular’ to itself.
A6a - sweetcorn, trail of tears beans, dwarf french beans, hollyhock,
night scented stock and buckwheat.
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