Okay, the first rule of 2021 is that we don't talk about "the year prior." We leave behind here all reference to the misery and chaos of the past few months and any bad feelings or thoughts associated with it. And, for the record, the title of this blog entry does not mean what you were thinking it did. You obviously stayed up late on New Year's Eve and have carried over your hangover and mental remnants of debauchery from the closed doors of our locked-down society onto my innocent intentions. In complete gardening naivete, I meant "Oh my poor peonies." I can't believe you thought otherwise.
We won't talk about last year's miseries, but we need to be prepared that our gardening tribulations didn't magically end with an arbitrary agreed-upon calendar change. The photo at the top was taken on Christmas Day last when I realized to my shock that my fernleaf peonies were already birthing into the world, months ahead of prudence and safety. These poor darlings are waking too early, yet another victim of the seasonal time change. Or global warming. Or it could be normal and I've never noticed it. But it was only Christmas Day and I had peonies breaking ground! Ridiculous. They should be still sleep, like this reading, dozing old man in my garden, carefree for the cold world around. My peonies should still be snug under a frozen crust, protected and nurtured by the brown earth around. Oh, my poor precocious foolish darlings.
And those little red nubbins weren't alone. Nearby and also coming out were these more-blanched spears of what I think are a
Matrona sedum, and doubtless I could find more elsewhere if I looked. But ProfessorRoush doesn't go looking for trouble when he can avoid it. If I don't know they're out and about, I can rest easier under the illusion that my garden is also at rest, hibernating against the frigid days still surely to come. If I stay out of the garden in body and mind, I'm almost positive my garden cannot change without me. If I don't search out problems, they won't visit me, just as COVID stayed an ocean away last spring while we ignored it, correct?
Well, it was the thought that counts. I can't change the seasons, nor the cycle of death and rebirth, anymore than I can change the clouds rolling across the Kansas prairie. I can only await, anticipate, and accommodate to whatever comes in 2021. It was only a number change, people, the world still moves along its same prior path. We must perish or adapt, just like these peonies in the coming cold.
We won't talk about last year's miseries, but we need to be prepared that our gardening tribulations didn't magically end with an arbitrary agreed-upon calendar change. The photo at the top was taken on Christmas Day last when I realized to my shock that my fernleaf peonies were already birthing into the world, months ahead of prudence and safety. These poor darlings are waking too early, yet another victim of the seasonal time change. Or global warming. Or it could be normal and I've never noticed it. But it was only Christmas Day and I had peonies breaking ground! Ridiculous. They should be still sleep, like this reading, dozing old man in my garden, carefree for the cold world around. My peonies should still be snug under a frozen crust, protected and nurtured by the brown earth around. Oh, my poor precocious foolish darlings.
No snow your way? We got nearly 4 inches over here.
ReplyDeleteThe mild winter we have had up until now has had stuff a little too eager for comfort. Even the dahlia tubers I have in storage have started trying to sprout in storage months earlier than normal.