I was going to start this letter poetically, all about the sun and the warm earth, but I just can't wait to tell you: the peonies are coming up! I'm so excited!
Well, at least two of them are poking their little heads out of the soil. One of the others is in a shady spot and will probably be another week. I had almost given up hope. This will have been the third time I've tried planting peonies, with the prior two efforts ending in sad failure. (That's right. Not simply "failure", but "SAD failure".) They seemed impossible. I would enviously drive past yards in Miles City with their abundance of lush blooms, stems drooping with the richness of the flowers....
I would also tell myself (like Emma in the movie of the same name) that really they were drab little flowers and who cared? (I cared. I cared a lot. Has anyone in the world thought a peony "drab"? I thought not. Because they aren't. They're glorious.)
Now, I know you said that they probably won't bloom the first year. That's just fine. And I know I shouldn't count my blossoms before they set on, but I am.
The cats think I'm nuts, gasping at the ugly little beginnings of the plants, then cheering. (Really, peonies are quite homely on day one and two. Maybe even into day three. They have little alien-like heads before their leaves spread out.) I have to be careful, because if the dogs think I love a plant more than them, they promptly dig it up or lay on it until it dies, gasping and cracking.
I completely forgot to take a photo to post; I can do that tomorrow and add it here.
In other, more ordinary news...
The tulips need divided, so they only sent out two or three reminder blooms this week, sulking until they have their way. All the trees and shrubs have baby leaves, tender and bright. The birds make such a commotion when I venture near! Oh! And for a few days we had two little owls living here! They were grumpy and blinky because they insisted on trying to sleep under the honeysuckle bush right next to the front door. Tough neighborhood for owls.
I need to get something pulled together for supper, but I wanted to share the news with you and my other friends who read the blog. Or who used to read the blog. It's been a long dry spell, I know.
Isn't it delightful, though, to have garden triumphs?!
Happy spring!
The Farmer's Wife