Bowl of Beauty by Susan Price
It's called 'Bowl of Beauty.' It's a peony and I had to have it. This is my mother living on in me. Her small garden was so crammed with plants that there wasn't a patch of soil to be seen. But there was always some other plant she had to have. My Dad lives on in me too, because I'm just as interested in the things that live in and around the plants. Last year, I was given a bee hotel. That's what the sellers call it anyway. I'm puzzled that, according to the sales catalogue, bees get a hotel, but ladybirds are housed in a barn, like back-packing hostellers. The little toe-rag caught in the act: Photo: Bernhard Plank But, that aside... Since it was a gift, I dutifully opened the bee-hotel for custom but, being a pessimistic sort, didn't expect much from it. So I was surprised and delighted when several of the holes were filled by leaf-cutter bees, so called because they block their nesting-holes with the neat circles of leaf they cut from nearby ...