Borage: An August Garden Note

After all my years of gardening, somehow I had never grown borage.

This year, I tucked a little into the garden.

I may have underestimated her enthusiasm.

Borage does not seem particularly interested in staying where she is planted. She has wandered freely through the garden, sprawling between other plants and reaching into pathways as though the entire place had been offered to her.

Perhaps it has.

Because then the flowers came.

Little blue stars, sometimes brushed with violet and pink, suspended above stems and buds covered in the softest silver hairs. I find myself stopping to look at them whenever I pass.

And I am not the only one.

The bees adore her.

All summer, the borage has been humming with visitors- tiny wings moving from one blue flower to another. What initially felt like a plant taking over began to feel more like an invitation.

So one August morning, I gathered a small handful of flowers.

I floated them in water for a while, admiring those impossible blues, then tucked individual blossoms into an ice tray and placed them in the freezer.

By evening, there were tiny pieces of the garden suspended in ice.

Nothing necessary.

Nothing complicated.

Just something beautiful.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I garden. There are always these small offerings waiting to be noticed- a flower I have never grown, a bee disappearing into a blossom, a handful of blue stars gathered on an ordinary morning.

Borage may have taken up considerably more room in the garden than I intended.

I think I'll let her.

Some plants earn their place by behaving.

Others earn it by being impossible not to love.

An August garden note from Wild Hawthorn.