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

08/27/2026

I have avoided my garden for a month, but it goes on.

Morning Glory Vine

Once upon a time there was a morning glory vine, who rose above the earth in the heavenly days of spring, when the earth unburdened itself of the weight of winter. It was a time when the birds returned in great numbers and began to sing their immortal songs, and when the morning glory began to look for the sun. Everything in the garden was new in those splendid days, it was a place where the greenest of dreams were born almost every beautiful morning. The vine went searching.
The morning glory vine loved everything it found. It hugged such things as cared to be encircled with its green arms, or touched by its green hands, or it simply gave a green kiss to those who passed near on a summer’s day. Soon the vine was happily waving in the air to the passing clouds whether they were angry and full of rain or the clouds who were the jumbled white companions of the brightest of blue skies. The vine drank sunshine by the gallon and enjoyed the luxury of the raindrops dripping from each leaf, and the vine grew.
The day came when its first morning glory flower was born, in the secret moment before the first light creeps over the garden, before the butterflies wake up, and as the dew is painting the garden with a fresh coat of dew drops that make everything in the garden new again. The first breath of the morning glory flower might be shared by a bee who loves wearing a pollen coat more than words can say, or a wandering butterfly.
The blue flowers hoped to dance with a hummingbird or two, before the wind comes up and it becomes difficult to hold hands. Sometimes the morning glory grasps the air attempting to catch hummingbirds who sniff its blue flowers, who lick its blue face, while the sparrows pluck insects from the vines.
The blue flowers will swim in the autumn air as some of the birds wish them goodbye and head south. Their blue hearts will beat until the frost comes for each one, and after that day their blue shadows will haunt the garden as the empty vines catch the first batch of fresh snowflakes . The morning glory vine seeds will be fast asleep amongst the leaves and garden debris, and some will return. Blue velvet, blue dreams, blue.

Crystal Trojek
August 2023

08/24/2026

Finding Home

My garden is more than just a collection of plants, it is a keeper and caretaker of the invisible world of the emotions of life, all connected to the passage of time. It is a peaceful place, even storms cannot permanently erase its legendary, eternal skills to produce a calmness in the world. The earth grows these moments as easily as it coaxes a sprouting seed or encourages a plant to reach for the heavens. Flowers, flowers have much to say, in scent or silence, just by being alive.

Intuition, the garden creeps along as time passes. The moments are changing, as the moon and stars are discussing unseen events that we may be fortunate enough to witness and be called as participants. Another morning breaks, most of my garden inhabitants rise changed from the previous evening. A later sunrise, a sooner sunset, the breath of autumn whispers in the melting darkness to the ripening tomatoes, the roses setting their possibly last flock of buds. The dahlias probe the ethereal and silent mist each morning, the morning glories bloom on a sea of white, floating blue flowers, adrift on soft waves. The garden patiently listens. Autumn, autumn is on the doorstep as I contemplate wreath construction, what to hang on the waiting naked door this year. It is time.

After the school doors have been opened to the freshly minted classes of eager and not so eager students, the change of seasons becomes real, as the early morning fog and heavy dew breaks it slowly to the garden. Fresh sunlight inches its way down through the trees, birds know. They chatter around and above the garden in the pause before the day comes fully upon us. There is a fervour in the season of autumn, one that is not present in spring who never arrives in a frenzy but a slow peaceful warming. Perhaps because my garden soon desires rest, beneath the fast falling snow, in the silent memories that it will hold close until the return of spring. In the wildness of autumn colours, the fiery temperament of orange, red, and yellow burns brightly, calmed by the soothing purples and burgundies.

Merlin says there is a Tennessee warbler in my garden this morning. Tis true, I can hear the little creature in the trees. Feathered companions are chattering amongst the leaves and branches, on the ground, and in the air. A hummingbird charges into the garden, it protects its feeding ground from others. It knows what migration takes, it’s a tough, lonely road but go they must. The pause of the summer garden is over, and change is coming. Another wild thunderstorm came last night, pounding my dahlias, tearing at the trees, soaking the earth and pasting a collage of leaves, twigs, and flowers to the ground. The wind is lessening as the dawn breaks, sunshine reaches with tentative fingers to part the trees. A Cape May warbler tells tales of where it waited out the storm. It will pursue mornings in other climes, and not feel guilty.

I do not know who I will miss the most, perhaps the young oriole that visited the other day. She came to my garden a tentative visitor, snacking on bugs, her youthfulness shining pale orange in the morning sunlight. Near my kitchen window she came like a long lost friend, curious about the hummingbird feeder. I wondered if she had come before, or if she would come again, or if she was bidding my garden farewell. She must go, young as she is. I wondered where she was born, if she would remember next spring and return. I questioned if home was a nest or a journey to a summer playground. Perhaps home is just where you feel safe, wherever that is, out of the rain, storms, blistering heat, the contented feeling of a good drink and a full stomach. Perhaps home is just a place inside all of us, we just don’t know it. She knows, how lucky she is.

Crystal Trojek
August 2026

08/24/2026

Evelyn

Evelyn was the first rose I adopted to live in my present garden. Rose bliss captured my heart as I passed by, she whispered with perfume riddled words, “I am your first rose love.”
For many years Evelyn lived as a solitary rose by the back corner of our home, the sun shone brightly on her every morning. She bathed in the first ethereal light of the day, she grew stronger every summer. She died back in winter, despite the sheltered spot I called her home. Experts claimed Austin roses were marginal in my part of the world. People told me they might last one winter, maybe two if I was very lucky. Evelyn would get black spot, her leaves would fall off. Evelyn would not stay, Evelyn would go. I doubted, but Evelyn did not. I found associates for Evelyn, or perhaps more truly they found me. They are fine company and true friends, Evelyn’s rose companions with like minded dreams and goals.

I prayed on spring mornings that I might find a green shoot, when the days warmed once more, mountains of snow melted, the birds returned, when sun washed pleasantries arrived in my garden. Evelyn sent a green message written on tiny rose leaves who seemed to unfurl by the hour. Then another. And another. Evelyn made buds while the world became green again, even if a few snowflakes came to visit her. Evelyn soon made more flowers. I gave Evelyn fertilizer, I watered her, watched her grow. Every winter morning I hurried down to see if Evelyn was still there, dipped in snow. She hugged the brick wall, treasuring its last days of warmth. I began to trust Evelyn.

I am the mother of Evelyn the teenager now. Some day another soul will watch for her first bloom, it won’t be me forever. I realize when she blooms she is perfectly ageless. She allows nibbling rabbits and foraging beetles small pieces of her but not all. As long as the sun shines, the clouds bring rain, winter wraps her in a warm white blanket, Evelyn will return. She said so.
As long as my weary heart still searches,
As long as the sun rises and sets
There is the possibility of another Evelyn,
Just once more.

Crystal Trojek
August 2025

08/20/2026

Monarch

The truest of vagabonds came to my garden this morning. The white ink that the sun was using to slowly write the August moments on every leaf and flower was still wet. Dew was plentiful, humidity was creating another script for another late summer day, and a lazy wind was creeping about looking to rouse some sleeping bees. I could hear them, a faint buzzing of lost and fuzzy notes in the depths of foliage, or watch them sniffing around on flower centres of all types and sizes. Bees, almost joyful at first light, happily wearing various shades of yellow pollen.

Fog, a rolling mist, was packaging up the shadows of last evening, its mind was content and its wide arms were almost full with more than enough to welcome tomorrow. It was careless to waste a drop of moisture, no matter how it came to the garden or how meagre. The bees were humming their morning tunes in long singular notes, the birds looked weary as they arrived at the bird bath. A hummingbird seemed the most ambitious, meticulously prodding every flower that was able to accommodate its long beak. I have wondered if one ever poked a sleeping earwig.

Drenched grass and now wet feet was the price one paid for the opportunity to absorb the peace that flowed on the completely quiet surface of the bird bath and the fish pond. Dark and voiceless, a magical calmness dwelled in the cool depths of the slightly green water inhabited by water hyacinth roots and various insects that would be hunted by my seriously committed goldfish. The shallow reflections in the bird bath under the maple tree recorded the face of every bird and creature that visited for a drink. Just as thoughts of breakfast reminded me it was time to go in, I saw a butterfly, a lone monarch butterfly.

No earthbound anchor would keep the butterfly in my garden, no dahlia would be a temptation to keep it close forever, uncaptured by a reaching morning glory vine, a spider could never wrap and keep it in its web. The wind would never master its path, but carve its long avenue of escape. Birds hadn’t enough words to coax it to stay.

The bright face of zinnias wouldn’t always enjoy its company, the rides on the monarda, coneflowers and rudbeckias would end, the shadows of its orange stained glass wings would whisper to its thin black legs, “No more, we must go.” Its freckled body would pause for just a moment, its delicate antennas would turn south, the warm rays of the brightest of morning suns could merely bless it before the journey began. The butterflies would soon be gone, on fragile wings of purpose that would never doubt, and with hearts to brave to fear.

Crystal Trojek
August 2022.

08/19/2026

Caterpillar

I discovered a caterpillar in my shade garden this morning, in the quiet peacefulness born of a rising late summer day. I watched it, writhing in the water of one of my bird baths. It twisted and turned, in the water’s reflection of the tree above and the sky scattered with hopeful clouds. A small leaf also drifted there, a green life raft or that to which it was clinging when it fell from above and dropped into the clear water. The water would be cool here, and I keep it clean, and I wondered if a bird might count itself lucky and sn**ch it from drowning. It might not, all caterpillars are not consumed by birds.

Weakening, the caterpillar stopped moving. I wondered what its adult self might look like, colourful or earth toned to blend in within its surroundings. I thought of how many caterpillars might be in my garden at this moment, maybe more just like this one, only luckier. Other caterpillars, beautiful butterfly dreams not born yet. I remembered holes eaten in leaves, some large some small, some plants bore multitudes of ragged holes, some perfectly arranged holes. Sawfly larva holes in rose leaves. Cabbage moth holes in kale and cabbage. Caterpillars almost covered every stem of the apricot tree at the farm, alive it was with them crawling by the hundreds. Kids filled jars in ten minutes, grandpa laughing at them. Chickens devouring them.

I recalled the huge caterpillar as large as an adult finger that my son found inhabiting a young apple tree we grew, how sedate it looked jailed in a mason jar. A bit of grass and a couple of apple leaves for a bed, the lid peppered with nail holes so he could transport it to the class show and tell. Not staying safe in his room, I said, he might let it out. The garage was perfectly fine. How angry he was when said caterpillar made a cocoon out of the grass, no longer visible in the cloud of strong webs by morning, the jar almost filled with his solid workmanship. Not nearly as exciting as something that moved, but it went to school anyway, later deposited in a happy ceremony in the fence row, carefully freed from a jar to return to who knows what.

The caterpillar began moving again, I questioned good or bad, I chose. I will give it a leaf, give it a chance. Better yet, there is a longish stick, that is a sign. Do good. Speed, it had a natural speed on that stick, or panic. Not lingering on the edge of the bird bath, it chose air. Landed on a hosta leaf, hustled on down to who knows where. Soon it will be autumn, and I will see the wooly bear caterpillars, rippling along on sticks and concrete, searching for tomorrow. Wide black stripes, long winter, very narrow stripe, I guess he hopes to hitch a ride to Florida. His colouring makes me question if he has ground hogs for friends, due to a mutual interest in the weather. Perhaps he just came to remind me that autumn is almost on the doorstep. Life changes, every day. Ask a caterpillar.

Crystal Trojek
August 2026

08/17/2026

The Beggar in Green

My camera and I have been stalking hummingbirds for the last few days.I have watched them in my garden, watched them attempt to grasp every moment of the life they have had there in the last few months. Many of them are passing through from other gardens as they drift southward, slipping out on the tides of autumn. They stop for perhaps a few hours or a few days in mine, as the leaves turn all shades of colour beyond green, and I am grateful for each one.
Hummers are very fast in the air, expert fliers in all directions, including backwards. I was never lucky enough to capture a photo of a female ruby throat until yesterday, a first. I have been watching hummers poking their long beaks into the dark throats of morning glories, searching for the stamens in fuchsias, examining each bract of the shrimp plant, and checking out every colour and shape of dahlia that I grow and I have many. Hummers have searched the faces of zinnias, hunting for nectar, and yesterday one was even attempting to unfold several roses.
Many rest in the curly willow tree beyond the upper deck, hummers spy on us from the neighbour’s Japanese maple, they hide in the purple darkness of the red maple, I hear their chirping and rapid squeaking there. They converse amongst the branches, they argue over the rights to a single feeder that dangles above the lower garden. The green coat sparkles like no other hummer moment as the bright sun reached over the trees to shine on him, giving life to every fluorescant feather.
Once I hang the calendar on the September page, I think about clearing up garden stuff, cleaning out plants, putting away things, I sometimes think I will not give autumn a chance, it has an agenda. Most of my neighbours have taken down their hummer feeders, how lucky I am that mine was still there for one this morning. Frost is coming, I will have the feeder there until the end of the month, even it’s only for one more beggar in green. A shining, sparkling, little beggar in green.

Crystal Trojek
September 2021

08/15/2026

Autumn Fog

My name is fog, and I shall visit the garden
I’ll leave the finest pearls, every face I’ll pardon

and leave a gift of stunning light I’ll bargain
just the briefest moment for a meagre farthing
I
’ll swim away without a sound and starving
leave a drop, a present there sublime I’m carving.

crystal trojek
august 2020

08/13/2026

The Art of Rain

My hoe scratched the earth over and over again, scribbling a path in the soil around the juvenile cucumber plants. June and now July had welcomed the sprouting seeds into the world above ground, rows and rows of the green plants tucked in between the small furrows left by the cultivating tractor’s passes, the in between the plants parts of the field had to be violently attacked and quickly. The cucumber plants didn’t need too much convincing to crawl across the warm earth, a bit of rain and there were no fences that would hold them in place. I remember the bees, by the millions who dove in little yellow flowers, as they had exuberantly washed themselves with pollen from the thousands of apple blossoms at the farm next door a few weeks ago. Hoes sharpened in the semi dark and cool air of the barn, the sparks flew as the hoe blades prepared for another round of unending battles with pigweed and lamb’s quarters, and the occasional thistle. I’d never met a hoe until that morning, or a cucumber plant. This was farming.

At this time in my life, I garden years away from the days in the field, a little patch in the city is enough. I purchase cucumbers at a market farm, and still line jars containing various types of preserves in neat rows in a small fruit cellar. I like it, it is not work. Preserving food is a peculiarly lonely task, dropping memories in jars and tomorrows at the same time, a silent garden in glass. It is a world of counting without the assistance of my laptop, my companion is several worn notebooks with handwritten recipes, amounts, and dates of when the cucumbers started, or when it is time to go hunting apricots. Prices, I note prices and sources, not because they will be more next year, just to keep track how many baskets and save time in that part of the process. We travel country roads on summer mornings, when the sun hangs lazily above the not yet heat percolating fields, when words float amongst the fog, gather on the heavy dew, line themselves up on old fence rows, when the stories linger as when the earth waits patiently for rain. Old houses and old barns, the place where such stories were born and still live.

When rain comes, when a thunderstorm claws open the assembled clouds, when the wind arches its back and and swishes its tail, the rain obeys. Sometimes it washed plants fiercely, forgetting they were once small and weak, they bow down in the mud to its power. There are also merciful moments, when the rain drips slowly from the heavens, when the plants drink long and deep, when the earth soaks up the gladness of it. Rain comes in so many ways, but it is always necessary. I have seen birds patiently sheltering while the rain passes, the trees and shrubs in my garden have so many purposes other than a mere plant anchored to the good earth. Overflowing bird baths are often the result, relief on a hot day is not so far away now, they drink in the reflections of overhead leaves or now blue skies faintly studded with happy white clouds.

The raindrops, who have no master, draw such temporary artwork on leaves and flowers. Clear and pure they magnify the best of each flower, some raindrops are imbibed by thirsty birds, chipmunks, or squirrels. Some of the bright raindrops gather in unlikely places, some quickly fall to the waiting ground and become one with the earth. Brief are the lives of raindrops, but necessary. Sometimes rain comes as a lullaby in the night hours, dripping steadily on the sun weary soil, refilling dried out streams and ponds, wandering the earth as the world sleeps. Occasionally rain disturbs outdoor events, washing tents and temporarily halting celebrations. Rain leaves, it always moves on down the road, swirling brown waters in the ditches and along country trails rearranging gravel, pouring from culverts and refilling ponds and creeks that need refills.

In my garden rain is generally of a quiet nature. The little drops hang as clear ornaments on leaves and flowers, buds and vegetables, they dangle from string and window ledges as easily as breathing. They disappear, rain writes and departs, never recording the same words again.

Crystal Trojek
August 2026

08/11/2026

My Grandmother’s Rose Garden

I loved my Grandmother’s rose garden before I loved mine.

I met it just once, many years ago, on a July day. We were all weary from a seven hour night flight, my parents were running on energy bubbling over with the excitement at the thought of seeing their family again. I learned just how strong was the healthy power of anticipation, born as we soared in the darkness below the stars, the supply of beverages did not fail. The multiple polite accents from the British Isles were packed in place, it was a classic British pub with wings, the occupants sang pretty much all night long of the best of British tunes and recital of classic hand me down verse. I wish I could hear that again, that someone had recorded it.

I can still see my father practically jogging down that narrow cobbled street, he wanted to walk from the corner, from where the market started. Dad always walked fast, spoke even faster, that corner, this house, who lived there, that one was bombed but they fixed it, ‘me best raggie lived there’, the carts that used to pass this way, the darkness of blackouts, the iron railings strung out in long black lines dividing the houses from the sidewalk, so much had survived the war. So much had not. We passed the long row of houses at the speed of race horse lunging in the last 20 yards, then all at once he stopped. Dad had told his sister we would be arriving this evening, maybe four hours from now. Dad was fond of surprises, good surprises.

I can still feel and remember the way that time stopped in front of the house where my father was born, and his father before him, and beyond. The way his hand reached for that old gate latch, and slowly pushed it open. He had pushed the iron bars from his path a million times from when he could barely reach it. I can imagine he arrived home from the British navy the same way, quietly. There was a little stone walkway that led to that old door, on either side of the path there were roses. That’s all, rose bushes in neat rows. Dad whispered, ‘this was your Grandmother’s rose garden, and hers before.’ My Aunt opened the door, happiness poured across that garden as the roses blinked in the sunshine. It poured down on the silent roses as a long awaited rain, by now the whole neighbourhood would know we were here.

Her roses bloomed for those passing on their way up to the market, for those visiting the house, nodding in agreement during neighbourly conversations, waited in the dark for some to come home, some roses lived their brief lives in a vase on a table. There were all colours, a little square rainbow that sang as the bombs fell, the smoke lathered them, the air raid sirens did not diminish their beauty, and in the morning light they still chose to bloom. The roses are all gone now, as are the row houses, demolished for housing the government deemed as ‘better’ for people.

My rose garden lives a peaceable life, a lot of it was not created until after my parents were no longer able to see it. My roses have floral friends, they welcome bees and butterflies, birds, sunshine and rain and I visit their quiet world even in winter when they are sleeping under the snow. I remember them, as they once were and will be again. Their perfume reminds me they are still here, just a few steps from my door. Perhaps my father sees it, his sisters, his mother, a few others might yet see the rose garden still lives. It still lives, with me.

Crystal Trojek
August 2026.

08/09/2026

Yellow Rose
Another yellow rose came to live in my garden with me. It dines on sunshine every day, rain when the clouds seem obligated to provide it, and a few water drops from my garden hose when I notice it seems weepy in the summer heat. Yellow rose accepts each day of summer as it comes, there are no regrets.
I have wondered if yellow rose would be my last rose acquisition, if it was discussed in rose whispers on the journey home with the other rose that begged me to gratefully scoop it up in my tanned arms, a pale pink. My roses have now passed the mid summer mark of intense heat and drought, surviving in the dark hours when stars in the still warm night skies tell them to persist, cooler days will return. Perhaps the fireflies regale them with witty garden jokes, tales of the old garden days, descriptions of garden travellers who pass by, and introductions to the fast growing dahlias. I should love to bring them a bucket of the quiet scooped from a liberal supply of peacefulness found on an old well gravelled country road, where insects and birds still sing blessedly unaware of changing worlds.
Roses sing in perfumed notes. I know this when I am walking near on a just light spring or summer morning, because they call from rose spaces I have not yet discovered. They begin the finest of moments in late May as they warble a sonnet of notes announcing the first roses, who serenade the first peonies. From above my head now, the roses perform an aria on a June morning, occasionally poetic lines in a dark leaved recess hiding a just opened bud from the sun, sometimes a musical theme staged against a brick wall. By mid summer heat, the roses still chant in the quietness of early morning, they know early autumn will bring cooler evenings and a rebirth of roses who have patiently waited for thick and silent mornings, opening in a foggy mist to sing one more time.
Rose notes will yet be wandering in the dark, on clear nights when frost begs roses to step out and meet a drenching of frost, or even just a brief white crisping that melts so quickly once the sun strikes the sparkling froth. I am convinced a rose is blessed to never know its end, just its present, every day is meant to love the air, embrace the brief minutes of rose life. How tender they are, also strong and unafraid. Their lives are ageless, just reborn over and over again, in my garden, one more time. Hello ‘Golden Celebration’.
Crystal Trojek
July 2025

Inside The Garden Walls

08/27/2026

08/24/2026

08/24/2026

08/20/2026

08/19/2026

08/17/2026

08/15/2026

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08/09/2026

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