Serendipity

Things don't always go wrong.

Sometimes they come together seemingly without any effort,

or perhaps I simply forgot that I had planned it all very carefully.

Be that as it may,

planned or unplanned,

these juxtapositions of textures and colours

gave me great pleasure this morning,

when I looked up from my breakfast

and out into the garden.

I looked once, and looked again,

more closely, the second time.

So there is life at the tail-end of summer!

 Stately seed heads of volunteer poppies

which I nearly ripped out early in the season, because their garish colour didn't

fit into the colour scheme at the time.

A window box born out of desperation.

Left-over pink pelargoniums

matched with a tray of annual lobelias of (then) unknown colour and heritage,

bought from a stall in the market.

Some stiff golden grasses, pulled out from the borders,

stuffed in among the mix and, 

what do you know,

it works!

I had no idea 

that the plants under the Victoria plum tree

- which is not bearing well  at all this year - 

would all turn green-golden-reddish at the same time.

The Japanese maple is supposed to be the star attraction here.

Perhaps the others all bowed to her superior charm

and decided to become the supporting cast?

Another Japanese maple.

At the tail-end of last winter 

we prepared ourselves for its imminent demise.

Gnarled ancient branches stuck out, leafless, barren.

A former beauty in extreme old age.

Feeling sorry for it 

- it had been a star for many years -

we trimmed its branches, cut out the dead wood almost to the bone,

and now look at it: new growth from the stem upwards.

In the silver setting of the surrounding backdrop

it shines again, not quite the primadonna yet,

but well on the way.