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Inside The Garden Walls, Saint Thomas, ON (2026)

06/14/2026

The Father's Day story, 2024. Grateful for the memory, my garden has many words growing there amongst the flowers.
Spiders
I have had a life long fear of spiders. My Mum always said it was because I was bitten in the eye when I was very young, swelling became so bad I was taken to the doctor, which was rare for any of us as my Mum had a great fear of hospitals. Mum said I would never forget about that spider, I shivered when she talked about the spider plants in her garden. I used to dream of them being full of spiders when I walked past in the early morning, jumping from the depths of the green leaves and flowers on my bare legs and feet. I reached the street by another path, which I hoped was spider less. Spider nightmares have visited me for many years.
I love the springtime in my garden, spiders are tiny little things, newborn and struggling with their first tiny webs, itty bitty babies in numbers, perhaps birds eat a lot of them. I like to think so, even though I know spiders enjoy eating bugs. I still check ceilings for spiders, if I am home alone extensions are invaluable, and I pray spider cannot get out of the vacuum cleaner. I fear the garden shed, the webs of residents are thick and many on the windows and in the corners. My Grandsons know that nana does not want to see their pet spiders.
When autumn arrives in my garden, I pray for frost, hard frost. The days of walking in a dream near and amongst the flowers and plants, enjoying its wonders and promises of today and tomorrow are over. I spend much less time concentrating on photos, I thank God every dew washed morning when large webs are outlined in the first light of autumn days. Large spiders live there, very large spiders. Fast spiders, spiders looking to leave their kin behind them for next years garden. They are the spiders that haunt me, still.
I think now my Dad used to sing me a little song quite often for a long time when I was afraid. It was a mere handful of words ripe with imagination, a handful of notes sung by his father many years ago. The spider was washed away and some of us will always recall that funny little tune that told of the sad story of a hapless spider who never learned to swim but he also never learned to give up. I thought of that rhyme, my Dad singing it a couple of weeks ago, when a rose picture revealed a little resident spider just resting (or sleeping) (or stalking) from the heart of a lovely deep pink Gallica rose on a perfect spring morning. It had rained the night before, perhaps spider was glad of a little fresh drink, I do not know if spiders get thirsty.
I can hear my Dad singing that spider tune in the garden to me, working in the garden with a shovel or a pair of clippers or grass trimmers. Dad used to sing the spider song in the car on fine spring days, smiling and laughing if he missed a word, when the window was rolled down and a little spring breeze flew inside to seal the memory of the finest of moments with me. Spider in my garden last week was small, but the memory he (or she) chose to leave in the rising sunshine was large. Others must know the rhyme, it’s probably still travelling around, like the memories of my Father.
Inky Dinky spider climbed up the water spout,
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the water
And Inky Dinky spider went up the spout again.
Crystal Trojek
Father’s Day 2024

06/14/2026

The Lantern
There it was, abandoned, an old rusty old paint slightly broken door cast iron lantern. Straddling the grass filled earth, door slightly ajar, a small piece of sturdy pipe yet attached. Pipe was lantern’s steady feet, keeping it upright in the world of someone’s garden, pipe was a friend on which you could count in all weathers. Weary lantern, perhaps one too many attempts to make paint stick, paint dropping off in the winter months, summer baked into wandering flakes. Rust grew, more and more, rust was healthy and greedy for the lantern's flesh. An overhead cloud passed quickly, lantern slept on in the sunlight.
I imagined lantern young and pretty, its rustless paint sparkling in the sunshine while the puppy sniffed the lantern’s grass. I could imagine flowers growing up, stretching by its six faces. I could see bird looking inside lantern, perhaps considering a nesting place. I could see the rain dropping on it, water dripping from its face, the snow picking at its rust, snow flying through the open windows and through its little door. I thought of how many springs it might have begged come near. I thought of it frost crusted on an autumn morning. I wondered what roads lantern had travelled, its birthplace, where it fondly called home. Had it captured light and snow and autumn leaves in a singular garden, or several. Lantern was silent, lost and weary, broken and old, waiting for the garbage pickup in the morning. Lantern was warm and rough in my hand, I carried it home.
Husband added an iron stand. “Painted?” “No, I like it blistered, peeling and rusting, lantern is strong.” Today the morning light was born once more, filtering through the rusty lantern, searching for the newborn face of a rose. A multitude of buds were anxious to spread scent of roses, in a brief moment as light lands softly on an opening rose, lantern whispered. I remembered such a morning long ago, watching my father with a cultivator, ripping the soil in my mother’s little rose bed. A triangle of roses scented her garden, wandered across the little patio, a singular bloom occasionally scented the kitchen. I remember my father working steadily, scraping and scratching the earth, gathering the stricken weeds. I can see the roses shivering, the cold water dancing on their green leaves in the bright sunlight, that old rubber garden hose guiding along a brass nozzle. I could see the water droplets wiggling on the rose faces.
A cardinal whistles from the cherry tree, the heart of the lantern darkens as the sun moves higher, the rose breathes deeply on this present June morning, exhaling the sweetness of today. Roses, on Father’s Day morning. I remember, old lantern, time passes, memories remain.
Crystal Trojek
June, 2025

06/12/2026

Graham Thomas
‘Graham Thomas’ Austin rose has been living in my front garden for a few years. I have doubted him, his yellow self who rises in the spring air, leafs out once more as he sends his golden rose buds towards the sun while opening his eyes to look at a bright blue sky. Graham T. stands almost in the centre of the garden, sheltered and close to a Japanese maple that I wrapped for many winters, both now survive on their own.
Each spring when I wander amongst the wreckage of last years garden, when the snow is creeping into the thawing ground, when the wind still bites of cold once in a while and the next day the sun robustly cries ‘let us go’, I usually find one small length of a green cane that is the heart of Graham T., a scrap of the memory of what once was. Just one, slightly hidden amongst old leaves, dreaming of last summer, reluctant to look for sunshine again this year. I have wondered if Graham T. is lazy or a kind of rose that lives for a grand entrance when everyone else doubts. He does.
Graham T. has chosen to walk out, from a green sprig of a few weeks ago. He is a yellow rose who sails happily on the light and fair winds of spring that bring him home again to me, prepared to spend the golden days of summer as he wishes. He will sail amongst the plants in my garden until frost bids him sail no more, and until then he smiles, in yellow.
Crystal Trojek
June 2024

06/07/2026

The Rose Ladder

There’s a ladder in my garden, an old ladder. The hinges are decorative cast, metal scrolls that would never be found on
today’s aluminum ladders. This wooden ladder has journeyed
far from a little hardware store, its first home where the owner
knew most everyone who ever came into the store and where everything was, without a computer. Not one item in that hard-
ware store had a product code, and most of them had a price applied with a pencil.

This ladder is not so strong these days, its joints are a bit loose,
it is old. It has the marks of age, scrapes, goudges, scratches, splashes of paint, and its finish is gone, the shiny face it once
wore when it was new. One could doubt its capacity to firmly
carry one up its steps to cut tree branches, or clean windows.
The ladder is here and not so much here, all at the same time.

I have three old ladders in my garden, one is the friend of the
clematis called ‘Polish Spirit’. It has been here the longest, and
a nearby rose has also warmed to its presence. They happily
share the ladder.

The second ladder is fully open, anchored to the ground with a couple of pieces of rusty rebar. The wind doesn’t like its location,
but my Austin rose ‘A Shropshire Lad’ loves it. The ladder is
friendly, does not mind rain in summer or snow in winter piled
up to the highest step. The top of this ladder is a waiting place
for birds, waiting their turn at the bird feeders. It is warm in
the sun there, and roaming cats cannot climb up through the
rose brambles.

There is a partial old barn ladder in the back garden. Some it had met with an accident, its length was shortened but its red paint
and worn wooden rungs still rise from the ground up to the floor
of the upper deck. A burgundy rose is climbing it now, ‘Night Owl’. The Owl was reticent about the ladder the first year, but now, the Owl has decided to cover it. The bars are good places to tie the
rose to prevent the new canes from being whipped by the wind
during a summer thunderstorm, or being broken by a winter storm comprised of an unruly band of vicious snowflakes and ice pellets.

This ladder is near one of my garden chairs, a place to sit out of the rain amongst my garden inhabitants. The birds come and go, the sun rises and gently sprays the new light of day over the back garden. It paints the rose brightly, and the old ladder. The ladder looks new, bright, cheerful, happy, and new.

It is a ladder with a home, and a purpose.

Crystal Trojek
July 2021

06/06/2026

Doubt

Pruning roses is hard, and painful. I don’t like doing it.

It has been a hard winter in my garden, we have been discussing if the results this spring are from too much heat and drought last year, or rabbits, or a polar vortex that arrived when they should have been long gone until next winter. I have had to resolve myself to the fact that I must do much cutting, dead wood serves no good purpose to roses. It’s also depressing to look at day after day. I have purchased new pruners, sharp and lively they are. Mixing buckets of water soluble fertilizer, dumping each pail on rose feet. Ground is dry already. Scattering water soluble fertilizer to tempt rose roots with a healthy snack. Hoping for growth and blooms like no other year, I have great expectations.

I remember each rose as it looked last May, the time of year when disease has not yet discovered its leaves, insects have not yet defoliated rose canes. I imagined how the rose looked covered with green buds, how often I checked each one for the first sign of colour, the way the first rose looked as it begin to open on the finest of spring mornings. I dreamt of how rose perfume sometimes came hunting me, when the dawn was fine and new, and the scent of that first rose stepped out into my garden wandering the earth, young and cheerful. I clipped dry canes away from roses, the ones with multiple rose hips left behind. I imagined the canes struggling to hold all the blooms, how the rain filled roses drenched in a spring shower reached for the earth. Upside down they were, they danced a little, swaying in that fresh bathed breeze that follows the rain when everything is clean once more.

I have left some of the larger canes for further thought, distributing time for more signs of sprouting rose leaves. There are some thick, gnarled rose branches that I do not like to sever with the loppers, but I must. I thin rose branches that have been knit and purled together, all ready a green blanket without rose embellishments. It will come. I remember ‘The Crocus” will send them in deep shades of cream. A break from pruning roses came, the new roses have arrived at the garden centres. The air is still winter scorned, but the sun shines brightly scoring the air with warmth. The roses stand waiting for adoption. I choose three more Austins, because I doubt the strength of a few of the roses I have in my garden to survive. I fear I shall not see them again. We visit a few other garden centres, early shoppers get the best selection. I buy two more roses. All of them wait for me on the lower deck.

It is almost three weeks later, one rose waits to find the ground in my garden. In between May planting and moving, we have been blessed with two good rains that deliver fertilizer to the winer worn roses. They rise. The canes spring into the warming air, in multitudes. They soar daily for the skies, I ask for forgiveness that I doubted their rose hearts. The leaves stretch and yawn by the light of the moon and the deep and pleasant care of the sun. Each new day more roses awake, they are coming, they are coming for me in June. They are coming in numbers, the tiny green buds are peeping out amongst the leaves. I purchased one rose named ‘Amberness’ this year who already carried flowers, because it called my name as I was passing by, shivering in a cold breeze that searched the garden centre nursery for those unprepared for yet cool temps. I sometimes wonder if the label is true, ‘Amberness; says this is so in her case. I wandered into one greenhouse, a new clematis hopped easily on to my cart. I went back for the sweet rose, and purchased a floribunda companion.

Today I have my camera with me, documenting the spring garden for the grey winter days when I forget what lies sleeping out there under inches of snow beyond a frosted window. The winter days are long, pictures of yesterday and tomorrow comfort those who remember the lost and provide hope for tomorrow. Today ‘Amberness’ does not speak of the ravages of winter, but of the sweetness of spring. It’s perfume wanders around my garden, and covers me. The roses have returned, they have returned for me once more, even though I thought they were lost. Wait another week or two, rose miracles happen in the garden.

Crystal Trojek
MaY 2026

06/05/2026

Who remembers these plants? Who still grows them?

Cleome
I purchased another plant today, after I said I was done this year. I bought four of them, because they were quads. I happened to notice the truck being unloaded at the market the previous afternoon, the plant racks glistening in the sunshine, layered with green and many other cheerful colours. I happened to be going for my weekly grocery shopping adventure the very next morning. I had to drive right by, and the roses I was awaiting to be marked down were not. I might not get one after all, kind of disappointed. I also said I wasn’t buying more roses once this year and bought two more a couple of weeks ago, because they were 30% off. I take that as clear direction, and I obey.
I vacillated about which lane I should be in, (maybe I should just go straight home) only one other person was looking at those fresh plants, and into the parking lot I went.
Covid 19 has forced all of us to enjoy a close relationship with arrows of all sizes, kinds and colours, walking head down everywhere you go. I still wonder when I will bump into somebody, or witness the human (again) who really vehemently has a problem with arrows, signage, and lacks patience of any kind. About to leave the market and be sensible, no strawberries in yet (I felt that was my legitimate visit excuse), I glanced at a shelf of smart and tidy looking seedlings, clean and green, grasping the June air, reaching for the next shelf. Four inches of profound memories in a cell pack. They spoke.
“They’re spider plants, that’s what they’re called.” I leaned slowly back from the large spheres of blooms, holding my breath, away from the arching stems that stretched towards my face, almost touching my arms, hands, shoulders, and shirt. Just seconds before, I had been a little tanned kid sitting crosslegged on the crumbly cracked sidewalk that divided the cleome from the ferns against the house. Quickly brushed off once clean shorts, checked legs, feet and sandals to make sure a spider was not on me. I do not like spiders, any size, shape, or colour, especially on me. Quickly combing my hair with small dirty fingers, I messed up that home perm Mum and one of her friends gave me last week. Mum was still standing on the patio in the July sunshine, huge recently empty wicker wash basket on her hip, empty peg basket trying to escape from said wash basket, clothesline full. (as usual)
I can still see my slightly green little kid fingers, peeling open green seed pods, light yellow unripe seeds, remember the scent of them, the dew thick on the leaves of the enormous cleome plants. I can still see and feel the dryness of the brown seed pods, the little seeds raining down on the autumn garden, the way they danced on the tired soil, the morning coolness of the late summer air, seed pods dangling like silent wind chimes, some of them empty.
There are many seeds in many gardens all over the world, ripening and prepared to become plants many months later, prepared to share their many storied histories years later. Time is their most patient master, their souls embedded as particles of dust, but they are not. They are the memories that never say the words out loud, they just are.

crystal trojek June 2020

06/01/2026

Canadian shrub rose, 'Morden Blush' this morning

The First Rose of Summer

"The first rose of summer is the best. It links arms
with its unborn companions, all green and some-
times a strip of colour in their green hair, the first
rose brightly shines.

It is alone in the sunshine, and in the lean wind of
the early morning garden it writes the words of
spring that can never be spoken out loud. The rose
is dimpled with the clean dew, slightly lathered on
its perfect petals and slightly flickering on its green
leaves. Shiny and new, it sings."

- Crystal Trojek

06/01/2026

Strawberry

Parts of my gardening habits keep going, even if it’s in a jar.
On the first day of Winter Solstice, Mr. Solstice bursts from the sky and rides across my garden as an icy whirlwind, decorating my garden with winter from head to toe. Might be snow and ice decorating over load, might be just the top parts of the roses left showing above the white snow drifts. I will be ready. Birds know before the weather people, they just know, suet cakes will be ready, feeders filled.
My indoor winter garden is small, amaryllis has decided they don’t mind blooming alone in a sunny corner by the window. Rage on out there snow, rage on. Baking is about finished, Celtic Christmas oversaw the making of butter tarts yesterday. Assemblage of presents is about to begin, I gift a selection of jams in a decorated container of some kind. Blueberry, apricot, raspberry, peach, pear, and of course strawberry.
Strawberry jam is the shadow of the berries lying in one’s hand on a summer morning. Today I was supposedly making a quick trip into a market (who also had a lot of plants). Did not expect to find local grown strawberries lounging about in quart boxes, under a no longer bright blue sky but a ceiling of colourful hanging baskets. Not so long ago their space on the table was cheerfully occupied by spring flowering bulbs. A young student wheeled out a cartful of berries. I thought of strawberry jam and how much sugar I had in the house, my strawberry huller in the depths of a kitchen drawer, and the acquisition of lids for my large and trustworthy collection of canning jars.
Strawberries were proud, shiny and clean, ripe. I thought of the early summer days when young teens like me picked strawberries and were paid 10 cents a quart, and happy to have some spending money. I thought of my first strawberry jam making session under my mother in law’s supervision, wax sealed jam and how lovely those little jars of red summer looked sitting on the island in that rural kitchen. I ignored the price, and took a box of yesterdays home with me, and the tomorrows. I will make jam, again, later in the season. Fresh strawberries and ice cream today.

Crystal Trojek
May 2023

05/30/2026

A Golden Moment

Sometimes we rise as the light falls on the earth again thinking it’s just another ordinary day about to begin. Just another ordinary day. The birds have already been at it in the garden since before dawn, before the sun crawled over the horizon and spread its light on the earth once more. The day begins.

My bird feeders need attention, refilling before the subscribers arrive, some likely already have. New oranges, more sunflower seed, fresh hummingbird nectar. Everybody wakes up hungry, I just think about coffee. Even with the bird sounds the garden seems still in the fresh morning dew. Life is sometimes quiet, and peaceful. I pass the plants of May, the ones that just a few weeks ago were struggling for spring, looking for rain and warmer temps. The roses have soared from the ground with leafy wings. Their tiny buds are showing.I wander down the slope to the back garden, where the sun peeks through the trembling newborn leaves of spring.

Waiting and walking, planning a few hours of work in the garden. A profound moment draws silent breaths just steps away, alive with the beauty of spring. The sun spoke without words, as it reached each petal of the rose. The sunrise squeezed between the tree leaves, in just the right places, where no cloud hovered in its way. The rose had been waiting for the sunrise all night, the new light had lit each petal on fire as it was slowly opening to greet a May morning. Hello sunshine, here we are.

Crystal Trojek
May 2026

05/30/2026

Yellow Iris

My Dad liked yellow flowers. Daffodils in the spring, lots of them. Their gardens shrank as the years passed, smaller and less full of plants. My Mum liked gnomes. Big gnomes, little gnomes, nasty gnomes, sleeping gnomes, happy gnomes, ugly gnomes, if it was a gnome of any size my Mum had it, she sprinkled their concrete selves everywhere in the gardens. Passionate about garage sales, my Mum adopted homeless gnomes from all over town. My Dad hated gnomes, but they filled gaps in the garden forever, and they required painting which gave Dad something to do. They argued about disappearing gnomes.

My Dad had but one iris in his garden. It showed itself about the time they would be off to get those giant marigolds, in yellow, before they were gone, to make a bumpy yellow line at the back of the front garden, dotted along the gray foundation of the house. Lots of yellow from the street, and I haven’t seen those giant marigolds for many years. Perhaps they still exist, for those who save their own seed and keep such flowers going.

The yellow iris that my Dad had was bronze on the bottom petals, about a medium size and almost certainly quite an old one. It was also a scrappy one, as my Dad would often chop it up and stick bits in between the stones in his rock garden, which cradled a two tiered pond, with a waterfall. The whole affair was quite tall, and I remember Mum in later years yelling at Dad to stay off the top of his pond structure before he fell off. When they were little, my boys liked the bottom pond, the one at eye level. At least they liked it until Dad said no more goldfish in it, “they multiply like rabbits”. Yellow chrysanthemums came by in the fall, swarming the front steps.

Only yellow.

There’s a story in every flower, I have never been so foolish as to doubt it. As often happens, I purchased this one at a yard sale. “Oh it’s a yellow iris,” she said. Thinking yellow all over, home it came. When the flower appeared, the memories as always began to focus in front of my eyes, and the words came, as said iris wiggled in the morning sun and stretched at the beginning of the day. It came back, thank God, it came back.

Inside The Garden Walls

06/14/2026

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06/05/2026

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