Deleted Scene from Benandante

I had a wonderful diary entry from May 26, 1903 where Euphemia visits the Waterlily house at the Kew Gardens. The whole entry ended up cut as it did nothing for the story. I share it with you here:

May 26, 1903

The one great disadvantage of living in London is not being able to garden. I can remember my mother spending copious amounts of time planting seeds, nurturing the tiny seedlings, and then planting them outside. We enjoyed the blooms until fall, when she would carefully save the seeds to start all over again the next spring. I am not as skilled as my mother. Mainly because I am too busy. Gardening seemed like a tiresome hobby. I suppose that is why I chose to fence.

So, with no garden of my own, I visit the Kew Gardens whenever I have the chance. With all that had been going on, it had been a few months since I had last made a visit. Today I came to take in the waterlily house. I’m sure it would not be such a pleasant experience to be at a real pond with lilies due to all the bugs. But here at Kew, only the occasional bug that flies in when a person enters can be found.

That is the one disadvantage of a botanical garden. Most of the plants are housed in greenhouses, which means we lose the beauty of nature interacting. That was what I enjoyed about my mother’s garden. The fine webs woven by small spiders. The buzzing bees hovering until they found the perfect plant. If you look closely at any garden, you will see a magnificent display of life. I wonder if adults overlook this world among the flowers? They merely see the color, the beauty of the plants, but a child…a child sees this world within our own because they themselves are small. Or perhaps because children have the time to observe what we do not.