Petal Garden: Color Circuit

About Petal Garden: Color Circuit

Behind a library of living stained glass there is a walled garden, and its flower beds are planted with glass. Six kinds of blossom lie in the earth in six colours and six shapes, each set in heavy green lead with a flower of its own picked out inside: a daisy, a tulip, a window rose, a leaf, a six-petalled bloom and a sunburst. Swap two neighbours to line up three or more and they burst into light.

Under every bed stands a row of wicket gates, and each gate wants one colour from its own column. Clear that colour there, tile by tile, and the fanlight over the gate fills with light until the gate swings open. Beside the bed the circuit shows the colours to clear in order; close it as often as the bed asks. A good move does both at once, because the blossoms that fall into place can clear again on their own.

A planter stands for each gate. While a gate fills, its bud swells; when it opens, a shaft of its colour falls over the column and the flower blooms. Open two gates with one move and the garden pays blooming together, 150 points for each gate after the first. Close the circuit and a flock of butterflies leaves the garden in the circuit’s colours, with a fall of petals.

Twelve flower beds are drawn by hand, from the lodge bed to the great parterre: a knot garden, a sundial lawn, a rose arbour, a court round a fountain, a hedge maze. The music is a pastoral tune on harp and recorder, the sounds are trowels, leaves, iron latches and small bells, and every board has been solved by a computer player first, so a way to win always exists.

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