Hope of the honeysuckle

Two weeks ago, on a mild day when the sun was shining and there was a slight nip in the air I was walking idly around the garden. My son was playing in his sandpit, tipping the sand from it randomly to the ground. His mittens had been discarded sometime ago, the wool fibres heavy from the coarse grains they had taken in. He didn’t seem to mind that his little fingers were going red with the cold and the damp, we were both enjoying the fresh air.

There is not much life in the garden in January. There are puddles of standing water in patches on the lawn making it a haven for splashing in your Wellington boots but a nightmare if you want to cross it in anything but very waterproof shoes. The flower borders, devoid of colour are littered with little stones that have risen to the surface and rotting windfalls from the fruit trees. All but one of the vegetable beds are empty. The one that is full contains only weeds waiting to be cleared out. 

But I said there was not much life, not any life at all. In the corner of the garden stands a honeysuckle. In the summer it blooms with yellow-white flowers that smell as sweet as sugar but since the flowers faded and leaves fell it has been a gnarled, twisted frame leaning against the fence as if in need of a rest. But not now.

It has been a damp but mild winter and until today we had not had as much as a flurry of snow. I have read that plants and trees can be confused into waking up early from their winter hibernation if the winter months have been kind. But the honeysuckle is hardy. It has survived very cold winters and hot summers, it has been climbed by cats, dug at by a dog and pruned in to submission by humans.

The hope of the honeysuckle is for continued mild weather, a warm spring and when summer arrives, for us to enjoy its blooms once more. After that its leaves will drop and it will brace itself against the fence for the onset of winter.

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