Avalon Gardens

Photo by Michael Bourgault on Unsplash

“And over here we have slumber apples in three different varieties: Short Nap, Golden Dreams, and Dead to the World. They make great healthy bedtime snacks! Next to them are the Apples of Youth, which are lovely for pleasure gardens, as they bloom all year long - even in winter. The fruit is small and sour, not worth eating. And of course, we have ornamental Golden Apples. Fruit appears once every ten years. They are for decoration only, if you tried to bite them you’d break a tooth!” The tour guide gave a brilliant smile and laughed at her own joke.

I smiled back. Outfitting a sorceress’s garden was a daunting task. It was a more than a dream come true though; working with magical plants was always so fascinating - they keep you on your toes, especially the hybrids - and building a garden from the ground up? Well, the sorceress might be the one footing the bill, but this was my garden. I looked at my brochure again. Avalon Gardens: Magical Greens and Nothing Else! It was the largest magical nursery in the States, nestled in a river valley in Idaho. It was so large that we were bumping along in a golf cart on a tour that had taken most of the day. We had just come out of the greenhouses after looking at the man eating plants (which were fed with cows, not people), and it was a relief to get out of the humidity.

“It says on the map here that the mineral trees are close by. But all I see are the apples.” I was a little dubious about these. While they could be quite striking, they were very high maintenance.

“Oh, those are underground!” chipped the tour guide. “The Silverleaf Trees tend to tarnish if left out in the elements too long and the gold ones loose their shine. We just imported some Gold Groves, so the Mineral Caves are closed off until next week while we move them in. And,” she lowered her voice confidentially, “The Princess Diamonds have coal blight at the moment.”

I winced in sympathy. I made a note that a Gold Grove might be fantastic in the entryway, but otherwise, they didn’t seem worth the trouble. I also started a sketch of some Apples of Youth surrounding the wall of the garden. Then I frowned. Did the local teens know enough about horticulture to know better than to try stealing the apples? ‘Youth’ referred to the year-round flowers, not any property of the fruit, which was a common misconception. It would be a nuisance to keep chasing over eager teens out. On the other hand, one bite of the apples would probably ensure they were never bothered again. Those apples were just as sour as lemons!

“Can we see the roses now?” I asked. Roses were always a good staple for enchanted gardens.

“Oh yes!”

We left the orchards behind and were soon amid the colorful bobbing heads of the roses. It was a relief to see all the different hues. Magical trees tended to run towards the gold side. I read an article online once that claimed all magical trees were descended from one ancestral tree that had sprouted from a gold vein so many thousands of years ago; it wasn’t hard to believe.

“Those blood-red ones on the right are Castle Thorns,” said the guide. “Very few flowers. Lots of thorns. Grow like crazy. They make wonderful barriers, though they do need lots of pruning. Anciently they were used around castles when dragons were too hard to come by. They’re still a great addition to any security plan you’ve already got.”

I nodded thoughtfully. Perhaps some Castle Thorns around the garden walls and Apples of Youth more towards the center. The beds of roses were all shades of red from a crimson so dark it was almost black to a pale baby pink. There were deep purples and dusky lavenders, pristine whites and butter yellows and fiery oranges. A faint fragrance wafted up from them. I quickly filled up a page of notes. 

“Most of these are Enchanting Roses. They aren’t magical themselves, but they soak up magic like sponges. So if you need a timer, or a plant to grab an intruder, or a recitation of your grocery list, these will do it. The brochure has a list of the most common spells Enchanting Roses are used for. If you want to do something not on the list, check our website for more details.”

A quick glance at the list told me the colors made a difference in the spells. I made a star next to it. The sorceress would have to look it over to see if there was any particular spells she wanted. Otherwise, I was pretty sure I would have free range. And then we came to the blue roses and I gasped. Oh, I’d seen blue roses before in vases, but I hadn’t seen them growing. It was as if we’d suddenly entered a mini ocean. “They’re splendid!” These we needed no questions asked. They would make an impressive bower for receiving guests. Pale ice blue roses would add a frosty elegance to summer. It would be unsettling. Magical. Perfect.

The guide grinned at my enthusiasm. “They’re delicate, but worth it. Be sure to pick up a booklet back at the office on their care. My favorites are the Sapphire Hearts.”

“What are those, the white ones with blue tips?” I asked then scribbled down her answer Glacial Thaw. I had a new favorite plant; besides the Venus Flytrap on my office desk, the pussy willow and white daffodils in my backyard, the living rocks in my bathroom, the lilac bush down at the park… I have a lot of favorite plants. But the Glacial Thaw roses were at the top of the list.

By this time the sun was setting and I almost missed the black roses. I wasn’t so sure about those. They were impressive and beautiful, but people tended to assume only wicked witches had them and I didn’t like to think what that could do to the sorceress’s reputation. With the sunset in full swing just about the only thing visible now were the giant beanstalks off in the distance.

“Off to the night garden!” cried the guide.

I had never worked with night plants before. As we tumbled along, I wondered if they were even worth it. Most night plants either gave off a heavy scent or a dim light. Hanging baskets of moon violets could mark a pathway, but lanterns were perfectly serviceable. Star water lilies looked impressive in ponds, but how often would there be guests in the garden at night to see them? Unless the sorceress wanted to host a midnight ball or something they would be wasted. And she hadn’t seemed like the ball giving type to me. We passed a field with large sprinklers shooting water over rows of short leaves. I frowned. I didn’t recognize them. They didn’t look like rapunzels, or mattress peas, or anything else I could think of; they had to be really rare. I tried to consult the brochure, but it was now too dark to see it. “What’s in the fields?” I asked.

“Potatoes!” said the tour guide brightly.

“Potatoes?” I asked in surprise, wondering if I’d heard her right. I didn’t know of any magical potatoes. It had to be a new hybrid. Maybe they grew as french fries or potato chips in the ground. How would they get the dirt off? Or maybe they talked? Talking plants were all the rage right now, though I didn’t see the point in giving potatoes the gift of speech. “What do they do?”

“Oh nothing much,” the guide said breezily. “They’re just good honest potatoes.”

“Why?” I asked at a loss for words.

She laughed, “This is Idaho. It would be unpatriotic not to have potatoes.”

I stared at the fields and sprinklers as if I’d never seen them in my life. Of course I had passed several potato fields on my way to Avalon Gardens, but somehow I couldn’t wrap my mind around them being here, in the most magical place I had ever been in my life. How could it be that the strangest thing I saw in Avalon weren’t the golden trees, or the man eating plants, or the glowing moon flowers coming into view, but the potatoes?