SPRINGTIME IN FRANKFURT
Sunday, 26 April 2009

After the tropics you realise that flowering gardens are really products of our northern climates. Sure, there are flowers in the tropics. But, notwithstanding the pictures of dusky maidens with orchids or hibiscus blossoms in their hair which I carreid with me to the tropcis, I discovered that there are not really nearly as many flowers as I would have expected. Gardens in the tropics, the few that I have seen, are leafy with the aim of juxtaposing different leaf colours and patterns and shapes and achieving a feeling of coolness. Shade is the essence. Northern gardens go for flowers and flowering shrubs and try to have different floral displays on the go at all times from chilly springtime until late autumn.

After the damp, cold and gray German winter - none of your hard-blue prairie-winter skies over here - spring comes in like a floral bomb. After months wrapped in anoraks and sensible shoes, you can't wait to get outside. Think of al those German Romantic poets; they didn't write about coffee-houses or pubs. They gushed about the flowers and springtime and the forests. At the first stray spring sun rays in March, cafe tables start appearing outside on the pavement. And it's not just the smokers who are sitting out there, still warmly dressed, sucking up those first bright beams.