Roots etc

Today I planted some cyclamen corms: nuggets of silent strength and force that will, if undisturbed, continue renewing themselves for years to come without further attention. Naturalisation it's called.

"Although it is a naturalised rather than native plant, it seems perfectly at home on a British woodland floor."

The trowel was my father's. It must date from the 1950s when stainless steel  came into use for garden tools. I had the handle replaced a few years ago but otherwise it remains the same as it always was and I've now been using it for  longer than he did.

Although, like cyclamen,  my father was "perfectly at home on a British woodland floor" he never officially became naturalized  and remained 'stateless' to the end of his life.* He was fortunate in being able to slip past bureaucratic hurdles by virtue of his class and privilege I suppose.

We have  in our natural world, just as in the political one, so-called 'invasive aliens' such as Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam which continue to appear and take root despite efforts to eliminate and  dispose of them. Some botanists take a more relaxed view and suggest that, left alone, the  natural world will eventually adapt  and rebalance to include non-native species (as has happened on some islands).
So far no one has suggested exporting them to Ruanda.

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