Twenty three
Let me describe to you a curb side garden - our humble front porch built with the help of a few good friends, V, B and T. Right in front of our big window, against painted cyan blue bricks, the raised bed garden is a long, narrow rectangular box constructed with brown pressure-treated wood, 11 ft by 2 ft, 1.5 ft deep, and estimated to hold about one cubic yard of topsoil, which could be ordered online without any hassle, and delivered next day right to our door. A few days of busy work and intermittent rain interrupted, almost a week went by before we were able to fill up the box, with soil that looks pitch-black, fluffy and soft to touch, and has a sweet smell to it; this suggests the quality and vitality of the soil, so rich so full-bodied that I almost want to dig in and devour a mouthful. In no time the image of a porch garden blooming with beautiful evergreen shrubs and flowering plants begins to emerge; I am advancing my time to next year, a dream that KGVBT, and the two gardening centres help to build: now there's lady's mantle, two small densiformis yews (in reality one just got stolen the other day), jumpseed with red buds, Miss Kim lilac on the left and dwarf lilac on the right, a blue carpet dream of juniper, lily of valley, and oh, Solomon's seal - a fairytale plant with bending stems, bearing tiny dainty white and cream bell flowers, swinging and dangling like little pendants on arching arms.