It isn’t far from Auckland… (Apologies to Alfred Noyes).
I can still recall heading down to Kew Gardens whenever I got homesick on my OE, to hang out with the New Zealand trees and shrubs in the temperate house – tragically lost when wild storms some twenty years later left a trail of devastation across the south of England. By my glasshouse, too, is a vigorous patch of London Pride, the first plant to reappear on the bombed-out wastelands of wartime London, giving heart to those faced with the task of rebuilding.
After one of the wildest and wettest Septembers I can recall in years, I ventured out in the garden this afternoon with a camera. Flowers have a remarkable ability to emerge, by no means unscathed, but still quite, quite beautiful after all the storms – or the Huns – can throw at them.
