I’ve been doing it since I was a child. Foraging bouquets, I mean. Having a fallow garden and urban wilderness at my disposal feels like a rare gift to my inner child and in this, my favourite time of year, I am blessed with a constant supply of fresh flowers. I take advantage, but I don’t take too many. I make sure that there is enough for others who would like to partake, and the pollinators too.
Today, I found a peony growing in the fallow garden. I could only see one tight fuchsia ball of a bud, and I exclaimed out loud “peony!” with excitement. My first instinct was to leave it there for everyone to enjoy, and then I remembered. In May, there were some gorgeous pink tulips that tapered to purple at the base of their petals. They were elegant. One day I stopped to take some photos before doing my round of the riparian zone and then heading through the other side of the fallow garden, the luscious secret gardenish space where you enter through a small gap in voluminous hedges. While in that space, I saw a woman pull up in a blue neon and get out of her car with a bucket and a shovel and a purpose in her step and I knew just what she was going to do. And she did. She dug up the tulip bulbs, pulling up and just tossing aside those beautiful, elegant tulips. I gathered them up and took them home to put into a vase and place on my bedside table. I felt sad and a bit angry about the tulips; as if the place was slowly being stripped of its magic.
I decided to take the peony before somebody else saw it and dug up the plant for their own garden. Since that tulip day, I have noticed many holes in the fallow garden that I hadn’t noticed before and figured that people have probably been carting away the plants for years.
I took the peony and I cut a few sprigs from a surprisingly polite honeysuckle and fashioned them into a loose arrangement on my dining/work table. The sun is streaming in and falling directly on the flowers and it is a pleasure to behold.