Michelle

Written By Michelle Montezeri
             
The minute I walk into my grandmother’s vibrant colored garden, it is as if I walk right into my childhood’s coloring book filled with a burst of exploding colors.

Standing fifteen feet tall on the right of the green rectangular garden, is a thirty year old “Morello”cherry tree, which in the tepid summer gets visited by hundreds of perfectly colored falu red cherries, and in the winter blooms with elegant flowers that seem to be bathed in electrifying splashes of Persian pink and white.

Behind the ‘Morello” cherry tree, five little green “Gaviota” strawberry plants rest in the chocolate brown soil. This little tree is in full swing all year long, and finally flourishes with the most excellent eye popping red strawberries, ready to be devoured in seconds by my grandmother and I.  Right next to the strawberries, is a patch of bushy green plants.  Although the carrots are shy and eclipsed, when I pluck the stem-like plant out of the deep dirt, an amber-orange carrot abruptly appears to say hello.

On the left of the garden is a thick dark green bush that leans against the pungent purple fence that covers the whole garden. Even though it grows such a small fruit, I can see it from the other side of the garden because of the dark blue complexion  that is hard to miss.

The purple-blue like berries look as if the finest and most expensive paint was poured softly and delicately all over the berries. My grandmother’s garden doesn’t only have plants and trees, it also has little friends living inside the magical garden. The butterflies that usually rest on the cherry tree, added even more spice to the soiree of colors.  The butterfly that still lingers and flutters through my thoughts was the most colorful and vibrant of all.  It’s as if everyday that same butterfly had a different adventure and had no care in the world, and each color reflecting as part of its unusual personality.

The delicate wings had a hint of aqua blue that blended with the sky as it flew through the garden: the tips where smoothly brushed with a dash of light yellow, and had random splurges of different colors that appeared tot have no pattern whatsoever. Green, yellow, black, orange, blue, pink, purple, red and white. Name the color and the butterfly had it imprinted on its wings. It is as if the whole garden was colored right into the wings of the tiny butterfly.

All the way at the end of the garden is an apple tree, that’s decorated with the most refreshing green apples I have ever come across in my short sixteen years of my life. The apples have a twisting fusion of spring green, chartreuse green, and bright green, all mixed and blended into one perfect apple.  As I gaze upon that apple tree, it makes me feel as if I’m still that little girl jumping up and down trying to pick just one apple out of a tree that was five times the size of me.

In the center of the garden lays a circular patch of greenery, overflowed with the most beautiful, invigorating flowers called “The Acacia”. Their flaming yellow tints flow over the leave like a banana covered by its peel.  Because the acacia flowers have been twirled around in a circle, it looks as if it is a sun blazing off warmth and sunshine into my grandmother’s garden, and into my life.