Faded Petals, Lasting Grace

Audio version.

“A woman is beautiful by her scars.”
Diana Vreeland, former editor of Vogue magazine

When is a flower dead; past the point of no return? At what point do we flick the switch on its life support, reaching misty-eyed for secateurs to pluck the pendulous blooms of a rose, salvia, peony or iris? What does past sell-by date look like? A bit withered? Curled slightly at the edges? Vibrancy departed in favour of the colour of nicotine-stained fingers?

I ask because, even after a lifetime of gardening, I can’t always commit to chop a flower holding the slightest shred, the tiniest semblance of beauty. In older age, which I’m approaching at an alarming rate from the wrong direction, I find myself bypassing blooms I know are shortly destined for the compost bin. So I leave them, allowing their gently luminous beauty to persist another day, or two, only to discover the wake of lifeless petals the next day, scattered across the soil that gave them life, neglected like confetti blown into the portico after the church bells have finished pealing.

They’re not all left, of course. I’ve developed a sixth sense for knowing when the time has arrived, irrespective of whether I choose to acknowledge it. That innate sense is borne from instinct; a lifetime of gardening, from shadowing my mother around our family gardens as a nipper, watching intently, as if almost sensing I would need this knowledge, these skills one day. And that need for knowledge came so quickly. Before I knew it I was the owner of my first property, a small semi-detached house with a rather dull, rectangular garden attached to the back. I soon filled the space with roses, peonies and geraniums; shrubs and a very small tree; familiar plants, to start with. Plants I knew intimately.

I soon learned that premature picking of palling petals promoted profusion - try saying that after a couple of Babychams! Back then, a novice gardener, I quickly understood that faded flowers were quickly succeeded by scores of new buds. Life then, as a guy in my early twenties was endless, no horizon in sight. My youthful abandon and invincibility saw me whipping off blooms, some just slightly tainted, with fearless intrepidity, plucked before their time - all of them Marilyn’s, or Jimmy Deans or Natalie Woods.

These days, I truly appreciate the mellow grandeur of a lark on the descent, or a slightly washed out bowl, no longer full of beauty. I marvel at the unfolding drama within my borders, the short, but obvious history being played out before me. Emergent, vibrant buds, full of vitality, nestling alongside the evanescent allure of timeworn blooms. It tells a quiet story of lineage and the passing of time.

Of course, there’s no place for ‘faded’, or ‘spoiled’, and definitely not ‘spent’ flowers on socials, these days. Every leaf, petal and bud has to mirror perfection. Not a blemish, not a stain or a tarnished plant is permitted. Post not pallid petals, is the unwritten but quietly acknowledged word, for the algorithm favours only the bright, the vivid, and the vital. Our love of faded glory, besmirched elegance and diminished grace is no longer acceptable. Youngsters today are being brainwashed, obsessed with the perfectly toned and honed images of young studs and debutantes, grinning inanely from flawlessly filtered posts, stories and reels, their pearly-white teeth gleaming, not a hair out of place. It’s not real! Our gardens, our homes and our lives are being airbrushed into a comical caricature of what they really are. With imperfection comes reality. With reality comes true beauty.

So let’s not play the mindless game of posting perfection. Let’s share the tainted, the spoiled, and the tarnished. Let us celebrate the beauty of reality; the leaf scorch, the snail-chewed holes of hostas and the last, lacklustre spheres of rain-balled roses.

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