Buddleia

I’m guessing it’s fairly unusual to have two gardens, especially a back garden and a top garden. In the house where I grew up we had a normal small garden at the back of the house, but at the end of a gravel ‘yard’ there was the top garden, a separate piece of land entirely, which my mum tended carefully.  Memory is a funny thing and childhood memories stranger than most, but it seemed huge, always sunny, and full of beautiful flowers especially in the Spring. It had a very large Victoria plum tree and a cage of gorgeous raspberries, tulips, wallflowers and purple honesty. It was also surrounded on three of the sides by a brick and a high flint wall which on occasions I walked along (probably without my parents knowledge!)

To one side next to a primative loo in a shed, was a large rectangular metal watercontainer. It seemed bottomless and often had mosquitoes flitting across the sky’s reflections. By its side was a large buddleia bush, mauve with crimson centred tiny flowers and numerous butterflies. It always seemed to be covered in Small Tortoise shells, Peacocks, Red- Admirals, Large Whites, we called it a butterfly bush.

I often see a profusion of these wiry shrubs, growing out of cracks and crevices, railway banks and corners of abandoned gardens. They are so tough they can grow out of gutters and cracked paving slabs and I’m always hoping to see the many butterflies of my youth, so far I have not been lucky, where have they all gone? My picture evokes a different time.