"Safe as a bird"
When Tom first sees the midnight garden, he thinks about all the great things he is going to do there. The narrator describes how he will hide in the trees: "When they came calling for him, he would hide, silent and safe as a bird, among the richness of leaf and bough and tree trunk." Suggesting that Tom would be as "safe as a bird" connects him with the natural imagery in this passage, and also fits in with the image of him sitting up a tree, suggesting that the tree is like a nest.
The storm
The narrator describes the frightening storm that occurs in the midnight garden at night, emphasizing the strong winds: "Tom could watch the foliage of the trees ferociously tossed and torn at the end, and, at the corner of the lawn, the tall, tapering fir-tree swinging to and fro, its ivy-wreathed arms struggling wildly in the tempest like the arms of a swaddling child." By comparing the branches of the tree to the arms of a child, the narrator gives us an indication of the movement of the tree and what it looks like.
The sundial
Pearce uses a simile to compare the sundial to Tom's father in the following passage: "there was a sundial; it was surmounted by a stone sun with stone rays, and its chin was buried in curly stone clouds looking like his father's chin covered with shaving lather." This comparison creates a sense of familiarity between Tom and the garden, suggesting how comfortable he feels there.
The fir-tree
When Tom first enters the garden, the narrator describes the fir-tree: "it was wound about with ivy, through which its boughs stuck out like a child's arms through the wrappings of a shawl." By saying it looks like a child's arms, Pearce symbolically associates the garden with childhood and innocence, which are key themes in the text.
