Death of a Daphne

One whiff of a daphne and I was hooked.  As I waxed on about the fragrance, the pinky-purple blossoms, the variegated foliage, somebody said to me, "You know that they die, don't you?" 

 

No, no I didn't.  But I do now.  It's even got a name: "sudden daphne death."  I was told not to get attached to my plant, wisely it seems.

 

I'd like to consult Rex Stout's famous detective Nero Wolfe (Death of a Dude, Death of a Doxy), but he stuck to orchids.  Wouldn't it be ideal if plants existed like they do in books: impervious to bugs, disease, and weather?  I remembered a passage by Barbara Pym (one of my favorite authors) in The Sweet Dove Died (not one of my favorite books).  The heroine (so to speak) is the elegant Leonora.  She displays a Victorian book of flowers, changing the page each day to display a different flower.  While Leonora left me cold, I did admire her ability to surround herself with beauty.  Why didn't I own such a book?  Well, actually I do, thanks to a friend's thoughtfulness.  So, to console myself, I put it out and turned it to a non-daphne page.

   

 

This was more like it.  Actually, I own a lot of gardening books,  On my coffee table is a beautiful trio of books.  Capital Splendor was given to me just last week.  It describes various gardens in around Washington, DC, which are gorgeous, varied and all the responsibility of people other than me.

 

Another stack of encouraging books is in the sun room.  On top of the pile is Down the Garden Path by my favorite garden writer of all: Beverley Nichols.  To me, his candor, ambition, imagination, and knowledge (not to mention his love of cats) are reassuring and inspiring.  (For more information on Nichols see Belle, Book and Candle's wonderful post Ten things I adore about Beverley.) 

 

 

 In fact, there are encouraging images all over.  Even historical and practical books look good (though I admit The English Garden, on the book stand, is neither.)

 

 

 Few things influence my thoughts more than the books next to my bed.  The Bedside Book of the Garden lies here. It's a lovely book: a pretty dust jacket embellished with gold, a matching placeholder ribbon and illustrations throughout. But the jacket liner sums it up best: "Here is a book that will not send you outside, or reaching for gloves and boots.  Here is a book to settle back and enjoy."  Perfect for the wounded gardener, no?

 

 

 My quest for beauty got a bit out of hand when I started to create a desk arrangement that would please even Leonora.  My grandmother's desk fascinated me when I was young: a desk and a bookcase, complete with Gothic-like glassed doors.  She gave it me, along with the chair, several years ago (her green thumb did not pass to me so easily.)   The books on the writing surface are festooned with flowers.  One of them, written in the 1930s, is about a young couple falling in love as they restore the fantastical garden behind their group house (who knew such places existed back then?)  My best friend gave me her copy simply because I liked it so much. Even the pen, yet another gift, is covered in flowers.

  

 

I will end this flight of fancy with the admission that I don't actually write at this desk (or do anything else, for that matter).  Like the state of my daphne, real life can be anything but flawless.