Interplant

Sounds sci-fi, but even cooler

Every year I must remember spring. Because with winter comes this really weird memory-wipe (which winter knows full well). And every spring I feel like I’m meeting up with a forgotten friend, someone that I used to know. And it takes me a minute to recollect.

”Hang on…don’t I know you?”

Extra true this year when winter was almost a full six months long. The Scandinavians are staring at me nonplussed (why am I always wondering what the Scandinavians think of me) but even around here, that is just way too long, and I have taken my time deliberately getting reacquainted with every new beautiful encounter. It’s glorious.

Plants are amazing. If there’s even the slightest chance they can grow, they will. Sometimes I feel bad for them, like I’m watching them make the best of an unideal situation, especially as I’ve seen the results of my own lame gardening choices, forced to face or reap what I have carelessly sown. A few years ago we planted tulip bulbs. This was when my first awakening occurred:

“Look at that! If you put them in the dirt, they just start to grow! I didn’t even do anything! They just know what to do!”

You may be asking me the same question I ask my friend who, every once in a while, reveals her unique upbringing that involved very minimal exposure to pop culture and whom i overheard saying to herself, “Oh yeah, McDonald’s is the one with yellow arches…” one day:

”Are you a human? Or an alien pretending to be one.”

Yes. I have just discovered the joy of growing things.

But the bonus with tulips is I forget what I’ve planted so everything that happens is a complete surprise. Colors, location, formation. Add the annual memory loss and it’s like the long, satisfyingly drawn-out opening of a really good birthday present. Or maybe a really slow but good magic trick. Taaa-daaaaa!

But this year I saw something that gave me concern. You see, last summer, after I’d been stricken with the gardening fever which ran all season long, before the chill (or fever break), I went to the plant store and gorged myself on perennials. Since the tulips and all evidence thereof had long vanished, as is my nature, I planted these new friends in a frenzied, haphazard fit.

“Plants! Grow where I put them! Put them everywhere! Plants for the future! PLANTS!”

As the tulips broke through, I saw the slow reveal of my ill planning. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt the shame of the my gardening hubris + naiveté hybrid. But I realized I’d forgotten all about the tulips and then there they were, sprouting up wherever they’d been subjected to be planted, trying their hardest to make do. I mean, it’s not like they can pick up and change locations. The tulips were forced to grow right through perennial bushes and shrubbery. Highly discomfited, I watched the plants quietly duke it out.

Perennials were like, what are you doing? Get out of my way.

And the delicate tulips defiantly whispered, I was here first. Also, relax, I’ll be gone before you know it.

I felt so bad about it. As you can imagine, I talk to plants and you can bet that includes apologies:

“I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

Do you think plants grow better when given a boost of vindication? Like exposing them to classical music does? I hope so. They should put that in plant food or instructions on the bag.

Sprinkle one scoop in the soil, then declare your unworthiness.

I did not plant new tulips last fall but I did plant some peony roots. When I saw what I’d done with the tulips I cringed a bit for the peonies and crossed my fingers. So far they seem to be in good spots and I’m watching them like a mother hawk.

I planted new annuals this year, dahlias and geraniums. I like to put different species together and hope they’ll get along. After I’d finished, I decided to read the instructions and saw that I’d planted them too close together. Awesome. So I dug them up and tried again. Growth is happening and I am learning, if slowly.