Flower Ghosts
I woke up and heard the wind still hassling the trees, and I wondered about frost. Before bedtime I’d decided not to cover the clematis, despite its purple flowers being those of its first ever fall bloom (it’s a spring flower by nature, or was); nor would I save the nasturtium, the salvia, or the balsam. I’d picked the few zinnia blooms worth keeping. Salvia before the frost… I had once been in the habit of throwing blankets, row cover, plastic table cloths, whatever I could find over swaths of plants to protect them from the first frost or maybe even two or three frosts; it had been a ritual during the many years I labored to have a garden where flowers were still showy and plentiful by the time the cold arrived. I’m less likely to hold on now, more likely to let nature be nature, however oddly she wants to behave these days. But then I remembered the amaryllis in its large pot, still sitting on the patio bench. If I put it in the basement (as usual), after a month of dormancy, it could come to the living room and resurrect itself in one or two huge gaudy blooms in February. It would do that, if I kept it alive tonight. I dragged myself out of bed and into my boots, coat, and hat. I picked up the heavy pot and put it just inside the front door. Then I walked outside again. The moonlight made the wind’s antics visible in the tall trees surrounding the house, and I walked past the tender plants as they swayed, hovered quietly on the edge of freeze-burning to death. My soft goodbyes were lost inside the sound of wind whirring through the remaining leaves on the large oaks by the garden and whooshing through the wall of pines to the north. Most of the blooms I could see were salvia’s. Diffused by clouds, the moon’s light wasn’t enough for me to discern the color enough to tell if they were alive or dead. I know the greens turn brown first and only after that will the bright red-orange flowers shrink into the color of dried blood. I could have gone inside for a flashlight, but I went back to bed instead, recognizing the familiar discomfort of that first frost feeling: relief that the growing season’s work is done and… Continue reading