Saturday Garden Blogging

I shouldn't blog on gardens on a political blog. But notice the little title on the top? This blog is about my opinions, and today I have opinions on the garden.

On roots, specifically, and in the metaphoric sense. When I bought the Snakepit Inc. its environs were pretty bare. There was grass, tamped down with weedkillers, and a derelict doghouse. There was also a pile of construction rubble, and from this rubble shot up one solitary leaf, daffodil-like. I dug the plant up and fed it for a few years and now I have dark purple irises smelling of cinnamon all over the place. All from that solitary leaf.

I'm not sure what type these irises are. They are evergreen which narrows the possibilities down a lot, but then most evergreen irises shouldn't thrive in my climate. Because I don't know what to call these irises I think of them as my Ancestor Irises. Something that the spirits of the house gave me.

They also gave me peonies. Peonies are famous for living long lives, and there was one in my back yard, hidden by that derelict doghouse. It's one of those old-fashioned types which smell of hand-cream, and I have made it multiply over the years. But even the peony did nothing for quite a few years after its rescue. I fed it and I fed it and nothing happened. Until suddenly one spring the air outside smelled of hand-cream and all you could see for yards were those incredibly sexy, blowsy peony flowers.

The moral of the story, if there needs to be one: Sometimes grassroots take time to grow before they erupt in a wonderful rebellion of color, scent and, dare we hope, sanity?