Goodbye to the garden

This week I found a few rain-free hours to tidy up the garden outside my little cabin - pruning, transplanting, cutting down the dahlias and japanese iris. It's an annual ritual, but this year I'm also saying goodbye to this garden, which I've tended and planted happily for five years. Now I'm heading for a tropical garden. I won't see the trillium bloom or the English daisies come back to life or the hosta poke up from their garden bed. I'm going to miss the astonishing scent of the sarcococus (I don't think that can be the right name) in January and the time in January-February when the varied thrushes pay an annual visit and the tiny daffodils that pop up in March. I'm going to miss this garden.

Instead I'll be learning new garden rules (do you plant in the rainy season, or in the dry?) and learning what to plant in El Salvador. The possibilities of a garden are so entirely different - even the grass in El Salvador looks completely unlike grass in Bellevue - that it will be a continual surprise to learn the garden. I don't think I'll have much time to miss the Bellevue garden next year, so I'm missing it in advance right now.