Just read an article in the New Scientist (Smarty Plants, 6 December 2014) about the intelligence of plants by Anil Anathaswamy.  I had explored this concept in my book LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND GARDENING.  Plants respond to touch (Mimosa pudica quickly, but others more slowly, heavens a lot more slowly), they respond to light and shade, they can hear (we saw orchids swaying to music in Thailand, yes, I am not joking), they can smell and communicate.  ‘They think, they react, they remember.’ Now it’s being explored scientifically.  With plants, ‘you get into this space where you are...

Today, first day of winter in the meteorological calendar.  So the met office says. Tidying up, they say one shouldn’t, that there are hibernating things of all sorts under the dead stuff, but I do.  Like  housework, but enjoyable, clearing and piling the slimy soapy leaves into sacks. No frosts, yet all deciduous leaves have fallen.  The sky striped with bars of blue sky and pink clouds.  Above me the white barked birch becomes pink, like branched coral.  Stillness, yet change every moment.  All is illusion. An Iris unguicularis has flowered, tatty and quickly slug riddled, but blue,...