Already, the brilliant plant is emerging.
Only a few days ago, no evidence.
Then without me seeing (how many more years will I miss the moment?) the first shoots are up.
Whenever
Whenever I see it re-emerge, I think about the garden where I got the plant and the people who cultivated it: Hadspen Garden, Nori and Sandra Pope.
When I think about that garden, it’s like a dream. It is still a constant inspiration, a palette that I recall and integrate into my own garden continually. Colour and the placing of colour, were the Popes’ core interests, and I was lucky to live near enough to be a regular visitor. I absorbed the detail in that garden into my cells. This Dicentra was selected and propagated by the Popes at Hadspen.
It’s the lime green – golden yellow foliage (as well as the staggering complexity of the flower structure). But for now, here are the first shoots. Their colour is full of promise in the dull February days – their ‘fingers’ breaking the soil.
I miss Hadspen enormously. I just loved going there – I was always going there. And I learnt so much from their garden. It closed (very suddenly) at the end of 2005 before I ever had a chance to thank them. Here is an article on another blog about the garden’s departure.
inquilines - art and cultivation 
