Our winter garden

While humanity was pre-occupied with the Coronavirus, the rest of the natural world continued as normal. We are enjoying a near perfect old-fashioned Cape winter with wind, rain and storms. The dam levels keep on rising and we are enjoying the best year for water capacity that we have experienced in a long while.

With the introduction of a hard lockdown in late March, everything came to a standstill except for mother nature. The trees still lost their leaves, roses went to sleep, and the citrus still ripened. Unfortunately for us, we were desperately trying to finish renovating Keith’s family home when lockdown was implemented and life as we know it came to a halt.

When the lockdown was eased to level 3 in June, the builders could return to their respective projects. We decided to return to Cape Town to give Keith the opportunity to keep a close eye on the progress of the renovation. It became an intense involvement, consuming every moment of our lives, including weekends.

Towerwater had to be placed on hold for the time being. Unfortunately, the Towerwater garden cannot be put on hold indefinitely. The garden embraces Mother Nature completely, with the associated seasonal activities demanded by a productive garden.

With a stormy weekend predicted for Cape Town, we decided to take the opportunity to head to Towerwater to start chipping away at garden chores that were now a month overdue. The roses and fruit trees needed to have been pruned by 15 July and the vegetable and herb beds needed preparation for the summer season.

Arriving at Towerwater was a joy. Fungai had kept Mother Nature in check. The garden showed none of the recent gale damage from which some townsfolk were still recovering. The garden inspired thoughts of Pablo Neruda and the three titles of his poetry collections that I had recently acquired. Winter Garden, The Separate Rose and Still Another Day.

The Winter Garden that greeted us needed some tender care, while The Separate Rose, long overdue for pruning, was still blooming, giving us Still Another Day to regain control before spring.

I was on the responsibility schedule for publishing the daily Covid-19 statistics for the Western Cape province on the Western Cape government website. That left Keith alone, braving the cold and intermittent rain, to begin the pruning of the roses. Luckily the colder than normal (the last number of years) weather has forced them into a deeper sleep. As a result, it seems that they might not mind the late pruning.

The fruit trees, however, could not wait. The early peaches and nectarines are in blossom. These trees are still young and perhaps it will be good to assess their natural growth for guidance before pruning them next winter. The trees that bear in autumn can still be pruned. All in all, we might still be able to catch up with Mother Nature.

There seems to be a calmness in the garden. The birds are more relaxed, a state of being I have noticed when there were no recent killings by a cat or predatory bird. Perhaps the cold inhibits the killer instinct in winter. Our winter garden is patiently waiting for us to sculpt it into spring with secateurs, spade and rake as we meditate about life in the time of pandemic.

The collections of poetry by Pablo Neruda comprise three of the eight manuscripts published posthumously. I found them different, more meditative but unmistakably Neruda. I enjoyed “Winter Garden” the most.

A Winter Garden is fitting for the times in which we live. Pablo Neruda meditates on his imminent death from cancer, embraces solitude, and returns to nature as a source of regeneration. The poem Egoist, has this verse.

"This is the hour
of fallen leaves, their dust
scattered over the earth, when
they return to the depths of being and not being
and abandon the gold and the greenery
until they are roots again,
and again, torn down and being born,
they rise up to know the spring."

The Egoist - Pablo Neruda

On winter days I enjoy reading poetry while winter writes its own poetry with raindrops on windowpanes, that temporarily turn the garden into a constantly changing impressionist painting.