The Martian Garden (1)

It's a plan of the garden or the design of a park, but also a herbarium. A herbarium of propositional plants carefully preserver between the pages of volumes of my memories. Volume 1 - childhood... which plant is remembered and why? Which will i take with me from the past to the future? 

A Christmas tree, you've said?! No, we always had an artificial tree. I wonder how many trees were saved during all those years? One tree a year, adds up to a little copse through out a years. A copse of saved Christmas trees! Let it grow here in the north. It the middle of the wood I'll arrange a little glade with bench under a silver birch - a small memento of my first kiss. The birch and bench were on the hill overlooking a small lake (let's make it a pond) all in white. It winter the snow made fluffy pillows on the pine trees, but the brunches of the silver birch stay almost bare, with the bright winter stars shining through the dark net of branches. It was winter back then: shimmering snow, glimmering stars, me and the boy kissing under the silver birch...

Further into the plan and years ago would be a row of three trees opposite the front door of a wooden house. My grandfather planted a tree to celebrate the birth of each child. The oldest was maple , then the bird cherry in the middle, and a poplar the youngest tree for my father. The trees did well, all three of them.

Under the windows of my parent's flat a few bird cherries also grew. they blossomed beautifully in the spring and birds enjoyed their berries until winter. lots of birds, they sang, my mum fed them, and our cat desperately made futile hunting poses in endless anticipation...

I have to say sorry for a few trees, which were chopped down, not by me exactly, but I did not mind very much. Three huge cypress trees - all vastly overgrown for our tiny garden, sucking all the goodness, from the soil and stopping everything else from growing despite all my efforts. They had to go, the authorities agreed and claimed that they might also be dangerous. Anyway, the tree cypress trees will be so much happier not being squeezed between the garden shed and the parking lot - but in the wild near the road and the field. Here. I'll plant more then just three - to say I'm really sorry...