A magical storm

I suppose any rain in August in Texas has a magical quality to it, but today’s certainly did, at least for me. I woke in the night because I was cold and turned off the a/c. But I also woke because it was noisy outside—wind blowing, rain pouring onto my roof, maybe a dab of thunder or two. When I looked out the window, the heavens were really dumping water on us. Went back to bed and slept soundly, secure in my little cottage. This morning it was still raining but slowed to a drizzle, and Betty took me to the grocery.

I was safely home and stashing my groceries when the heavens opened up again, dumping great buckets of water on us. I simply sat and watched for a while—it was magical seeing things in the yard perk up. All that is except the grass which, for some reason, is beyond hope this summer and gets worse ever day. Several of us have theories on what’s wrong with the grass—no two theories alike. Mine is a fungus, though gardener/friend Greg says he doesn’t think so. I’m about to call in the storm troops.

But the rest of the garden loved the rain. Fittingly, I am reading a book about a magical garden in Scotland. Now, you must realize, much of my career has been spent studying the American West, and if you told me there was a magical garden in Texas, I’d scoff and dismiss you as a featherweight. But tell me it’s in Scotland, and I’m all ears. I believe in Scottish lore, in the wee people and the legends.

The book is Flowers and Foul Play, fittingly enough an entry in the Magical Garden Series by Amanda Flowers. In this, which may be the first, a Tennessee girl has come to see her inheritance—a small, almost-seaside property in Scotland left her by her godfather. The land includes a walled garden, built around a stone menhir said to stand for at least the last three centuries. The garden itself began to die the minute word came of its owner’s death in Afghanistan. When Fiona finds it, all is brown except one yellow rose that twists around the menhir and blooms brightly in defiance of the season and the locale. It bloomed, Hamish the caretaker tells her, when her plane landed on Scottish soil.

As Fiona walks along the wall of the garden, the brown ivy turns green as far as she walks. When she stops and turns, the greening stops. Wonderful, impossible phenomenon. Of course, there’s a body in the garden, and an attractive but too-brusque inspector, and you can see where all this is going. But I’m loving it.

And today there was such a parallel between my greening garden and the magical garden. Now if that magic would only reach my grass.

May your dreams be filled with greening gardens and magical wishes.