Peppering the Bulbs: Auguries of Springtime

 Dedicated to My Friend

Jenna James Chandler -

Who inspires me to believe that rising up from the ground 
in beauty and in strength

is an attainable goal.

"I went a little bulb-happy at the Odd Lots store," I texted my husband.  

I am a sucker for attractively-packaged plant items.  Let me be honest.  A flowery Eden depicted on a glossy wrapper imposes itself upon that unattainably idyllic  mental landscape known as My Garden, and I can't haul out my wallet fast enough.  The people who print up the wrappers know this perfectly well, of course; we Garden People are like that, giving the Fabric People competition in the "Who can buy more stuff that we haven't figured out what to do with yet?" department.

All gardeners run into problems.  One of mine is that we have a lot of shade and far too few areas that could be described as "Full Sun." I tend to buy things that say "FULL SUN" and do not notice that this is stated loudly and clearly on the little information sheet until I get it home and am ready to plant it, at which point I realize that all the Full Sun patches are already as crowded as nineteenth century tenements on the Lower East Side.  Though come to think of it, why do I reach that far back in time for a simile in this, the deplorable age of the Stackable Micro-Apartment?

My other problem is the Critters.  We have critters.  Deer critters,  Bunny critters.  Groundhog critters.  Squirrel critters.  Chipmunk critters.  (Please Note: List contains a fairly large percentage of Burrowing Rodents.  This is what we writers call Foreshadowing.)

So the bulbs were a great buy, because a lot of them will thrive in part-shade, of which I have plenty. They were cheap - $3.99 a bag, with a pretty picture of what they're supposed to look like come Springtime stapled to the top.   I got wise fast to the fact that, no matter how much I love tulips, I am never going to be able to grow them, because the deer love them even more than I do.   "But I am too wily for them, " I thought, as I filled up my shopping cart with hyacinths, daffodils, allium (which I've never planted before, but which looked like something Dr. Seuss would draw, so I tossed them in), muscari (in plain English, "grape hyacinths"), and those charming little white blooms with the still more charming Russian name - puschkinia. (I know.  Makes you want to go to Veselka and order a plate of puschkinia with a side of sour cream.  It turns out they are named for Pushkin - albeit it's Pushkin the botanist, not Pushkin the poet.) "I shall only buy the ones that have the picture of a deer in a circle with a red line drawn through it!"

Last year I planted 100 daffodil bulbs, and it all but killed me.  I live in Rockland County, NY, and they were not kidding when they made the name up.  This is the kind of soil that breaks farmers' hearts. And their backs.  And their shovels.

This year, my ace in the hole is my friend Maria, who is an accomplished gardener, and who has lived here long enough to learn some of the finer points of outsmarting Rockland at its own game. On her advice, I purchased a pitchfork to use in place of the unforgiving shovel. Just as Maria promised, I was able to turn the soil much more easily, and the rocks loosened up nicely without a lot of grunting and sweating and cursing on my part.

This year, thanks to the low prices and the pretty pictures on the bags, I got home, unpacked everything, and found myself staring at 200 grape hyacinth bulbs, 75 puschkinia bulbs, 56 assorted daffodil bulbs, 16 allium bulbs, and 25 regular-sized hyacinths in a wide variety of hues.  I pitchforked the ground like mad and got about a hundred of the grape hyacinths planted on the first day.  After that, it rained, and then I got busy doing other things, and it wasn't until a few days later that I pulled on my gardening gloves and got to work planting the rest.  I put in a long morning, got very dirty and tired, and decided to break for lunch.  Before going inside, I wandered over to have a look at the area where I'd planted the first hundred bulbs three days before, so I could pat myself on the back and be suffused with that nice glow of accomplishment.

Instead, I let out a shriek and raced inside to text Maria.

Those Fucking Chipmunks dug up and ATE all my grape hyacinth bulbs! I'm gonna go Elmer Fudd on their furry little asses!

Dear, loyal Maria, in less time than you'd think it would take to stifle a laugh, texted me right back.

Bastards! Run out and buy some Critter Ridder before you plant any more bulbs. Or try some cayenne pepper.

We had cayenne pepper. I trudged back out and started sprinkling, closely followed by the dog. She, sensing I had something relating food in my hand, tromped around in the freshly-peppered dirt, sniffed it, sneezed, tried to lick it off her feet, gave me a reproachful look, and harrumphed back into the house, giving it all up as a bad job.

Gentle Reader - if ever I have had a case of the Fuck-Its, it was then.

I went inside, stifled the urge to eat a pint of ice cream straight from the container (mainly because there wasn't any, and I was repulsively hot, dirty, tired, and too damn cross to clean myself up and drive to the store), had lunch and a cup of coffee, and brooded.  Was there any point to planting the rest of the bulbs?  Wasn't I just setting myself up for a lot of frustration and chipmunk-rage?

For all I knew, none of the things would come up.  For all I knew, we'd fall behind on the mortgage because I was out planting bulbs when I should have been looking for a job, we'd lose the house, and all I was doing was making the place look nice for when the bank sent somebody to take pictures for the foreclosure website so they could sell it out from under us. For all I knew, I'd get some rare exotic disease related to chipmunk-rage that would carry me off before Springtime ever arrived; even if the stupid things did come up, I'd never get to see them anyway.

But slowly, as the chipmunk-rage drained away, replaced by the comfort of lunch and a hot cup of coffee, it came to me why I should do it anyway.

I should do it anyway because I love doing it.

I should do it anyway because when it comes to the future, I am charge of taking the action, but I'm never in charge of the result.

I should do it anyway because even if my wonkiest fears come to pass and I'm not here to see the flowers bloom next spring for whatever crazy reason (hey - maybe I'll sell my novel and be off on a book tour!), I believe it's important to create as much beauty as I can, whenever and wherever I can, because somebody will see it and take joy in it.  And if the somebody doesn't turn out to be me, that's okay, too.

The tree across the creek, flaunting its gaudy autumn garb of Halloween hues, was planted by someone who didn't have me in mind.  Every time I see it, my spirits lift.  I wish I could tell whoever planted it that it brings me joy - that I feel love for the tree and its beauty - that I am thanking whoever put it there in my heart every time I see it.

When I walk through a great public garden like The Cloisters, I am flooded with peace and happiness.  Hundreds of hands labored to create this vision.  I don't have a single name to attach to their efforts.  But I thank them, each and every one.

When I read a great poem by a long-dead poet; when I find a nugget of wisdom I desperately needed on that very day in a tome that had gathered dust on a library shelf until I took it home and gently smoothed the dog-ears from its pages; when I stand in awe before a Van Gogh painting, marvelling at the courage of an artist who permits himself to become a philosopher's stone that transforms unimaginable agony into indescribable beauty... that is when it's made clear to me why we must do it anyway.

It seems to me it must take faith

to be a flower.

Each year I’m shocked

to see them thrusting for the sky –

small soldiers bearing little green-tipped spears,

determined to surround

the tired city trees

that grow in cages of a yard or two of dirt

hacked into concrete.

But don’t you know it’s winter now?

I want to shout.  It’s much too soon –

it might still freeze.

Shouldn’t you wait? 

                           

I am excited

by the prospect of the daffodils,

the tulips, crocus, hyacinths;

my mind fills up with colors.

I see the flowers of bygone years -

they are a promise that I always fear

won’t be fulfilled again.

        

I want to make it safe for them to grow,

to shield them, tuck them in,

keep them all warm and snug,

where neither cold nor careless hand

can cut them down before

they go from stalk, to bud,

to bloom,

to graceful withered husk…

And yet, I know

my part in this is simple: Have the faith

that they will have their proper span

of days upon this earth;

rejoice that they are here again;

and most of all, don’t grieve

that they can’t stay for long.

Karen Clark, 2010, "The Faith to Be a Flower"