Written to the prompt G is for Garden
Rosie’s Garden
Oh tell me, Rosie; Rosie, tell:
What makes your garden grow so well?
Each plant in its rightful place
Grows and blossoms, given space.
If the plants are to succeed
Food and water’s all they need.
Water? In the morning’s best;
Watch out for disease and pest;
Food? Fertiliser, all my own –
A mixture of fish, blood and bone –
Plus a rich, free-draining soil
Well reward my hours of toil.
I use peat-free compost so
My little seedlings grow and grow;
I wrap tender plants for frost
Or I know that they’ll be lost.
Weeding and deadheading done
Regularly, rain or sun;
Trimmed and neat my garden hedges
And the same for all lawn edges.
Husband too, I’m bound to write
Works in the garden day and night.
You can’t see him but he’s there
And I know exactly where.
He bought carp for garden pond
But of carp he grew too fond.
I watched him become obsessed –
Gave those fish the very best –
Treated me so cruel and sharp,
Far worse than beloved carp.
I came home one day and found
My greenhouse razed down to the ground!
Beds were trashed make new ponds
He filled with fish – no ferns or fronds!
He dug up my prize mahonia
For some carp bought from Estonia!
He thought this perfectly fine
But he’d crossed my well-drawn line
Once too often for my liking
And, like lawns, he needed spiking.
A little hemlock in his tea
He drooped and died in front of me.
That fertiliser, all my own?
All his fish, his blood, his bone.
I ground up his thick old cranium
Sprinkled it round my geranium.
For digging up my prize mahonia
Now he’s under my begonia;
For treating me worse than a stranger
Now he’s treating my hydrangea;
For a thousand hurtful snubs
Now he’s in a dozen shrubs;
For taunting me about my failures
Now he’s pushing up azaleas.
Yes, my husband as I write
Works in the garden day and night.
You can’t see him but he’s there
And here, and there and everywhere.
© Carol Carman 2024
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