Hidden Beauty

I spent a relaxing hour or two in the garden of Crathes Castle, about 3 miles from my home, with my neighbour who is a keen gardener. We admired a climbing vine-type plant with variegated heart-shaped leaves. They were green, white and pink, voluptuously splashing over the wall as if in a bid to escape the confines of the garden.

There were glorious irises, in a variety of colours including a sort of tiger-striped beige one. Poppies – blue, orange, deep red, and a breath-taking salmon pink one. A startling ‘handkerchief’ tree – I had just said the flowers, three droopy petals hanging together from the branches, looked like hankies when we read that it was indeed a handkerchief tree – dominated one corner of one of the gardens. 

The gardens were designed in colours – the white garden, the yellow, the pinks, the purples. 

Then we went to see the ancient yew hedges for which this garden is noted. A few years ago, the gardeners pruned these wide hedges severely, and though they are mainly green and growing, trimmed again into a variety of shapes, in one or two places there are twisted trunks which will never turn green again.

Despite all the beauty of the garden, the swirl of browns on this dead trunk attracted me the most. The trunk was striking, contorted in shape with lines of reds and browns striping it. I’d love to have one of those in my garden.

The yew tree’s trunk is usually draped in greenery, hidden from the casual eye. Perhaps its inner, hidden beauty is only appreciated when it is dead.

God says that man values outer beauty but he values the beauty of an honest and upright heart. Hidden beauty.