Bloody Nasturtiums

I know that's an awful thing to call a beautiful flower but they have been the bane of my life for years.   I've just spent the past hour in the garden pulling out literally hundreds of the trailing variety that have infiltrated my patio, my vegetable garden and the wood pile. I'm not too bothered about the wood pile to be honest, they look quite attractive there but give them an inch and they take a mile.

It all started about 18 years ago when my father in law came to live with us. His wife had died two years previously and he missed her terribly and wasn't coping very well without her. He always loved Nasturtiums and had taken over a triangle of garden at the top of the road he lived on and planted the whole thing in Nasturtiums. When he left to come and live with us he entrusted the garden to his Godchild, Mary Perry. Mary loved flowers and couldn't grow anything else while the garden was full of Nasturtiums so she pulled them up and planted a beautiful garden there.

Grandad was horrified, he was disgusted with her, so disgusted that he wrote a poem about it.

The Nasturtium Garden 

or

Mary Perry

I often think of Mary Perry

who banned Nasturtiums from my life,

She acted worse than any mother

She acted worse than any wife.

I had a happy little garden, 

Nasturtiums grew there row on row,

And Butterflies cavorted gaily,

while bees supped up their honey flow.

Across my path came Mary Perry,

She banished butterflies and bees,

And planted in my lovely garden, 

Some ugly, twisted, blackened trees.

But worse she killed all my Nasturtiums,

She tore them up with savage glee,

and laughed at all my sad objections.

She did not give a damn for me.

But now I have another garden,

Nasturtiums bloom there wild and free,

I laughed at all her gloomy efforts,

She'll never, never, conquer me.

by John Kidney

The other garden he referred to of course was my garden. I spent the 14 years he was living with us trying to control the nasturtiums and when he wasn't looking I was pulling them up. He often caught me and he'd bang on the window with his stick, a playful warning.

He died 4 years ago and we all miss him so much, he was a huge part of our lives and I didn't have the heart to pull up his Nasturtiums until tonight. I had to because they were taking over completely.

I made this image for Mary Perry and thankfully she loved it. She loved him dearly and he loved her in spite of what she did to his precious nasturtiums. I was afraid it might be considered a little creepy but here goes, see what you think.

These were some of the nasturtiums i shamefully pulled up tonight. I took the photo of the nasturtiums in the glorious morning sunlight, the marble slab was just lying there waiting for himself to find a job for it. I selected the head of grandad in a an old photograph and added him to the stone turning down the opacity to make him almost ghostlike. I added the words from his poem because wherever he is I'm sure he is surrounded by nasturtiums. 

Camera Settings, Lens used, Tamron 10-24mm@24mm, exposure 1/800 sec, f4.5, ISO 100