Garden

There's this garden that I know where dogwoods flower like snow... and crisp boxwood hedges define its deer-proof edges. It's where sunflower and zinnia compete with fragrant lavender for the attention of a landscaper as picky as any trim carpenter. It's a garden with a vegetable plot giving the average sod a shot at mounds of muddy potatoes, beans, squashes and tomatoes. There are rustic rock beds filled with tulips, crocuses and daffodils brightening this stone-walled home like a mosaic from ancient Rome. And how about the sculpted grotto with the timeless Latin motto of the perpetually pining lover: amor vincit omnia? A well-protected lily pond prevents darting koi being bombed by patient herons and birds of prey immersed in their own ballet. There's a lawn for playing croquet or simply whiling away the day, shaded by a weeping willow doubling as nature's teary pillow. Apple-cheeked children, meanwhile, have built a makeshift pavilion to help them ditch the adult world and play with their youthful herd. Gardens are life's great levelers for lords and lowly commoners bold enough to dig dirt, pull weeds... and plant its most fertile seeds.