Tree peonies & Irises

A friend of mine came into the house for her art play session and said, "Your flowers-forgive me--they are girlie flowers in the best sense. They scream 'Look at me, I am a flower and I've visible from outer space!"

To which, in all my erudition, I replied, "Well, DUH! Ya think?"

You can tell I am a writer, I know. But, hey, this is why I specifically planted those two plants. When I remember to expose the iris korms nice and early, I am rewarded with spectacular results — the kind really needed by any instant gratification junkie who is trying to learn the rewards of patience. I've dead-headed thirty blossoms and there remain twelve fresh blooms today — the last, but that's okay. The tree peonies, a new addition of just three years, are beginning to hit their stride. BOTH had five blossoms the size of breakfast plates. (I'm old. This is a plate between dessert plates and dinner plates.) At this stage of growth, the effect is sort of silly--all blossom, no foliage. Afterward, now that the petals lie in profusion on the mulch, the sight of the foliage of deeply cut leaves branching from one "trunk" is beautiful.

The point is that I have always overbought annuals in May. Now? I am so fully satiated by the spectacle of delicacy and boldness, that I hold off. These two plants just saved me about $75.

I expected a report from the space shuttles, but no. I cannot believe that those circling toward Bradley field don't tip down to have a look at the intensity of red and blue. Nope. Oh, well. The nightly news' loss is of no consequence. When the iris pass, the regular peonies--a ten foot, low hedge of them--will be off and running.

I can look down from my office, or out from my studio and drink them in. The gratitude for lessons taught by grandmother, my mother, and my oldest friend make me tear up. I did not know I was a gardener, until we moved into this home nineteen years ago, to a place of lawn and one forsythia hedge and not one single other shrub or flower anywhere. Now an island of viburnum, red maple, rhodies, mountain laurel, andromeda, azalea, run the sweep of the fifty foot ranch wing of the house, sheltering the windows from a neighborhood of eyes that DO intrude. There is an alcove of shade, where one can sit unseen from the street, and look back toward the house, to the flowers and other ornamentals. It is a spot of quiet and coolness. I dug every bed, planted every tree and bush and flower myself, largely unassisted.

I have a robin the size of Pittsburgh, who lands not ten feet from me when I mulch or weed. He squawks at me after ten minutes, eager for me to leave the upturned worms for his lunch. He is insistent. I ignore him for a bit because I LIKE my worms. Eventually, I decide he deserves a meal, and I let him at it--for a bit.

I have had two weeks to drive into my driveway and laugh at my ostentatious, unruly, marvelous mass of blossoms. Soon I'll have another.

And now that I have work and it looks as if I may just be able to count on being here for TWO more years, not one? Well, I may plan another bed of future instant gratification. That phrase may seem like an oxymoron, but so is an impatient gardener. I think the NEED for annuals is for the learning process. Oh. Mind you, I'll get some for the little fill in places, but I will be more reasoned in the quantity.

Not in the brightness, however. I will need them for August, before sedum and chrysanthemum have their sway. After the ludicrous lilies have passed and their jester-ruffs have wilted, leaving pathetic stalk behind. I'll need my begonias and alyssum, petunias and coleus, lobelia and snapdragons. The punctuation marks of profusion filling in the blanks, letting me know that my legs still work well enough. My life is rich enough.

It is hard to remember how I hated to help my mother dig holes and plant. How silly I said it all was, all the while I marveled at the ten foot bank of rock garden that sloped up to our home. I remember the iris among the rocks. The daisies and pinks. Pockets of petunias tumbling into masses of something with foliage as dark as New Hampshire pine forest green. I would stand transfixed, yet insist I did not care for gardens... until I had no gardens to see. Until my mother was gone, the cottage was gone, and I grew tired of the sameness of apartment life.

I am a gardener and I never knew it. I am an artist and denied it for years. What a gift to discover such things as I moved through middle age. What will I discover by 65? I don't know, but suddenly, pain notwithstanding, this aging stuff seems a bit less scary than I thought.