Surprises

This home is a gardener's home. This yard was planted and tended for fifty years before we settled in. The first gardener raised her sons and her flowers in the soil I wash off of my hands and my children every evening. The neighbors tell me about her. "She was always out working in the yard," they say as I trim hedges or rake leaves. Not that I need to be told. The magic of this yard drew us to this house and the magic of the first gardener's plantings continue to surprise us.

 

We discovered these sweet little flowers suffocating behind some tremendously overgrown shrubs.

This is the first year these tulips have bloomed! Every year they sprout, form buds and are decapitated by some hungry animal before we even glimpse a hint of color. The garden fencing seems to be helping!

 

 

 Pink hyacinth hidden beneath the forsythia!

 

 

One year we had a yellow daffodil. One daffodil. This year I saw the sprouts coming up and was looking forward to seeing my yellow friend again but was surprised with one white daffodil. What is hiding beneath this soil?

 

 

Maybe wishes do come true because I wished pretty hard for violets last spring and here they are. How?

 

 

This is a surprise of a different kind. I planted this rhubarb. We bought it from a local plant sale a few years ago as a tiny little thing. I settled it into the ground and worried over it. This year it burst from the earth and spread it's enormous leaves three feet high and four feet wide before the buds even opened on the trees. And now this. Hidden beneath those leaves are these ridiculously large flower stalks that could be mistaken for funny colored cauliflowers. I had no idea my rhubarb could do this! I have now read that I shouldn't let it bolt but I am loving the surprise and wonder of it all.

 

For fifty years this magic was crafted by someone else. After six years I realize that I have become the gardener. I tend and trim and plant. I delight in the surprises that have been left for me and in the surprises I have created. The neighbors could say that I am always out working in the yard. Maybe gardeners sprout from this wee patch of earth like rhubarb in the rain. Or maybe the gardener was always inside me and knew home when she saw it.