I spent a happy day in the garden, pruning shrubs and doing a bit of general tidying. Here’s one of my big fuchsias before:
And after:
They love a good prune! I wasn’t as severe as usual. I normally wait for the leaves to drop, but this winter’s been so mild that most of the fuchsias stayed in leaf, and now the spring leaves are bursting out.
In fact, spring seemed to be bursting out all over on this sunny February day. Some of the daffodils are out, and the crocuses have been in flower for a few weeks. A bumble bee was enjoying this crocus:
The dogwoods are next on the pruning schedule. Not long now.
My day in the garden was tinged with some sadness, as this will be my last spring in it. A change of job means a change of house, even though my new church is only in Brighton and is nearer this house than the one we have to move to. I hope that whoever succeeds me in Hove and in this garden learns to understand it. In particular, I hope s/he doesn’t chop down my trees and continues to let it be semi-wild. For example, those brambly log piles are home to all sorts of animal life, including frogs and newts. Hey ho – it’s not my garden. However much time and energy and planting I’ve invested in it, I was only a participant in nature, and that silver birch and that liquidambar were never going to mature in my time here. But – it’s hard to be pruned.
Alex Mabbs 
Crocus and daffodils are still weeks away in Boston. Delicious to be reminded that they are on their way… Your mention of pruning reminds me of something Joseph Campbell (if my memory serves me) once wrote about Christianity. He was connecting the image of Christ being killed yet rising back up from the dead with the amazing power of plants to be pruned way back to their roots and then sprout back up again, vibrant and healthy. It’s summed up in the lyric of one of my favorite songs, THE LORD OF THE DANCE. “They cut me down and I leapt up high/ I am the life that’ll never ever die.” Hurrah for the sacred, valuable power of pruning.
And hurrah for Sydney Carter, who wrote some great songs.
I learned that song from a friend of my older sister when I was a child. Somehow it has never occurred to me that someone must have written it. I just looked up Sydney Carter. Now I need to track down more of his music. Thank you for giving me his name.
Try ‘George Fox’ and ‘Friday Morning’. There’s a good album of his songs, performed by Maddy Prior & others, entitled, ‘Lovely in the Dances’.