My garden is wild, meaning that I let anything that chooses to grow there, grow. So its full of grasses, shrubs and wonderful flowers like speedwell, garlic mustard, alkanet, buttercups… and all sorts of things other people kill and replace with neat lawns and chrysanthemums. But every June this exquisitely delicate, orange-red rose appears, a legacy from a previous owner who surely loved it as much as I do. It flowers last no more than a day or two before they wither and die. But others come, and then more, and then more still. Then a day comes when there are none left , just a few scattering petals and fading, drying leaves and thorns. I don’t know its name, just that it’s beautiful and that summer’s come when it arrives; and something’s gone when it fades away. My gardens are beautiful, wild and weedy though they may be. This nameless rose is their short-lived queen.