A Grain of Salt

I planted tomatoes a few days ago so, of course it is freezing cold and they are pouting. Who could blame them? I went out to check on them this morning and I was astonished. They are huddled close to the ground, but the rest of the garden is so beautiful! t is too cold to stay outside, it is sprinkling, I didn't have any tea, I didn't care. I stayed outside until the spring shower became a deluge. 

If I hadn't been checking on the tomatoes I would have missed it, for it is soggy and cold and who in their right mind would go out into the garden on a day like this?

The blue is a columbine; my friend Carol shared the seeds with me. She died more than ten years ago, but she is still in my garden. The yellow behind is Hakonechloa 'All Gold' - Japanese forest grass. It turns up the volume on all other colors. It makes everyone else in the garden look fabulous. Get some. Get more than some. Get a lot. Tuck it in in dark shady corners and watch it fizz things up.

The pink is the native redbud - Cercis occidentalis. Check them out at Sunset. Then go get some. Come to my house for columbine seed in about three weeks. This is a pass-along plant, it reseeds with abandon, it will remind you of the person who gave it to you, and when you pass it along your friends will think of you when it blooms in their gardens. Happy faces all around.

Victoria Falls - my favorite Iris. Used to have banks of mixed up colors of bearded iris, now only this one. It reblooms if you feed it -  the year I didn't feed because of water rationing it didn't rebloom. I learned my lesson, and this past year I cut blooms at Christmas. And I see it in the gardens of friends with whom I've shared, and I think of laughs and sad times shared, of a hug given when most needed, of how much I treasure my friends and how fortunate I am.

And there is that other category - you know who you are. The ones who say peonies and lilacs won't grow here, and sniff and look superior when I say but I have them and they are no trouble, and putting ice on your peonies is a waste of time because they bloom just fine without (check out the chapter A Grain of Salt in my book, Postcards From The Hedge - available now on Amazon - It's really funny).

So this is for you. Lilacs. Huge vases full in my house and still more down in the south forty. Peony photos to follow - when they are in bloom. Stay tuned. And wipe that smug look off your face.