Just enough insouciance in these magnolia ‘Jane’ blossoms to match my verse below, a take-off on Jacques Brel’s great song about the high life in Brussels before World War I

This is the time for gardens to sing
This is the time for April showers
This is the time when Gardens are King
This is the time when gardeners garden.

Put on your gloves and your high rubber boots
Muck in the mud, don’t trample the shoots
Get out the trowels, tug on the rakes
Pull up the dead, replace all the stakes

Not much time for crowing
How the garden’s growing

There are all those seedlings
There are all those weedlings

I try so hard to make the cut
My knees get black, my back is broke, but
They grow too quick
They grow too thick
How then can I clear out the glut?

Oh, this is the time for gardens to sing
This is the time for April showers
This is the time when Gardens are King
This is the time when gardeners garden.

Buy triple ten and scatter like grape-shot
Unholster the pruners, nip on the spot
Stir up the soil and pile on the compost,
Watch the plants grow and get ready to boast

How those worms are dancing
See those ants advancing

There is too much chewing
I smell trouble brewing

They’re ravenous, they lunch all day
Shred perfect leaves, to my dismay
Those greedy bugs
That swarm of thugs
How then can I keep them at bay?

Oh this is the time for gardens to sing
This is the time for April showers
This is the time when Gardens are King
This is the time when gardeners garden.
Oh, this is the time when gardeners garden. . .