Dandelions have started having a wild party in my neighborhood. I've had a great time going out and pulling their heads off. Yes, I know you have to dig them up by the roots to make any real progress, but sometimes violent decapitation is more rewarding. I saw a recipe online yesterday for an all-natural dandelion spray; that will be next. In the meantime, working out my aggression weed by weed will do just fine.
I have a tiny yard, and the grass is cut by our HOA. I have a small front flower bed which contains a hodgepodge of plants that my daughter and I have picked at the Farmer's Market from summer to summer. They're annuals, but they keep coming back. There's one large bush that the deer chew on through the winter, some tiger lilies leftover from church, some accidental tulips. Shoots from the roots of a tree that isn't even there anymore keep trying to come up as new baby trees.
We've an azalea that blooms after every other azalea in the neighborhood, probably due to its location. And over by the shed are some peonies which grow and grow every year, tall and spindly til they can barely hold their pink princess heads up. New this year are two neatly mulched bald spots where trees used to be. They await further instruction--grass? flowers? rock garden? statuary?
Keeping watch over it all is a funky flower sculpture given to me by a friend who knows how much I love upcycled crafts. The stem is fashioned from a wooden stair spindle, the flower as large as a dinner plate. It blooms rain or shine, winter or summer. No matter how depressed I get about the state of my rag-tag flower bed, that enormous blossom makes me smile.
Grief levels us all from time to time. But Spring and a homely garden bed remind us to begin again where we are, focus on what we have, and just enjoy the feel of the dirt and the sights, sounds, and scents of returning life.
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