Love Affair With Leaves

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My love affair with leaves is no secret…..

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Step into my garden, and you’ll soon suspect the truth:

There is no shyness about the amazing variety of foliage sharing our garden.

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We invite the beautiful and unusual to meet and mingle here.

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Though you’ll  find tiny little Box and Crepe Myrtle leaves facing the street,

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Once inside the gate, you’ll discover huge Colocasia, brightly painted Caladium, towering Canna and delicately etched Acer.

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Elegantly frosted ‘Gryphon’ Begonias  flutter in the breeze on their long petioles. 

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Fragrantly fuzzy Pelargoniums exuberantly spill out of their pots.

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And in those shady quiet places, ferns uncurl their fiddle heads into long and elegant fronds.

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What sheer delight to watch them grow! 

How bright the spaces where they glow on rain washed days.

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Begonia, Heuchera, Ajuga, Sage;

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Aralia, Alocasia, Sarracenia, Rose.

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Their names roll off the tongue like a mantra.

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They emerge from soil and stem,

fragile branch and woody trunk like dancers on a stage.

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They swell from tiniest bud to fully formed leaf

in red and purple, green and bronze, chartreuse, white and silver blue.

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Nip the bud and more will follow.

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Let them touch the Earth and roots may grow.

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Stroke them, smell them, dry them, eat them;

fill a pot to overflowing with them, listen to them sing on summer breezes.

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Leaves,

A growing obsession…..

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Woodland Gnome 2016

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About woodlandgnome

Lifelong teacher and gardener.

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