My Anemone Spring
by
Mary A. Green
We were driving to the garden center to buy a package of catnip seeds, and on the way I got the idea that maybe I should also pick up a box of anemone bulbs. Oh definitely anemone bulbs to plant in the corner of my garden that would need a bit of color in late summer. And I envisioned my cut glass vase on the kitchen table with an arrangement of anemones and snapdragons.
"Oh dear," I said to myself, "better pick up more snap bedders too. Those I've already planted by the garage will never be enough to keep me in weekly bouquets." And I was so wrapped up in my visions I didn't notice that our car had stopped in front of the garden center and I had to be reminded that we didn't "have all day".
After selecting the catnip seeds, I hurried into the greenhouse area calling, "I'll only be a second. Just need one item in here." I re-emerged a half-hour later to find my husband staring at the label on a bottle of pesticide. He didn't seem a bit surprised when he saw that I was carrying a tray crammed to overflowing with plants. Well, I had the catnip seeds and the snapdragons and a few plants I'd never heard of before. But I still didn't have the anemones. And I didn't have a hand free to get my glasses out of my purse. After a vain search for a spot to place my loaded tray, I resorted to easing a box of bulbs off the shelf into the crook of my elbow, and hurried to the nearest checkout. Here I found I didn't have enough cash to pay for the lot and ended up paying for my day-dreams with plastic.
My gardening season began in March with the first tomato seed poked into the soil of a window container. As garden centers opened for the season, I began picking up a few dozen petunias here, a couple of geraniums there, and $50. worth of seeds at another place. I thought I had everything I needed for an ideal garden after we'd loaded our car with bedding plants that day at the Wal-Mart. I'd gone into the store and called "Give us a 'W'", and grabbed up some Sweet William, then "Give us an 'A'", and put a container of alyssum into my cart, and so on down the aisles until I reached the 'T' and found thunbergia. With everything in the trunk of the car, my husband grunted a meaningful and grunt and said, "Well, that should do it."
"Yes, sir!" I responded with feeling as we drove away.
Then came an unseasonably cool period of spring when I had to cover up plants already in planters and bed, if there was a frost warning. As the flannel sheets fell over them each evening my neighbours may have heard me mutter, "No wonder they call them bedding plants". Those still in containers were faithfully brought outdoors each morning and put back in the garage at night.
As often happens in Winnipeg, warm weather finally arrived. I put the rest of the plants into their summer spots. When a daughter came to visit I took her out to survey my garden. "Too bad you didn't put in any catnip. It's very good for cats," she remarked, no doubt having her own feline in mind.
It turned out to be a very short row of catnip eased in between the basil and the thyme. And then, on that evening of the day I made my final trip to the garden center in '95, I looked for spaces where I might plant the rest of my purchases. The sun was pretty low on the horizon when the job was finished. I was sweaty and grubby and my garden gloves soiled to saturation, and the anemones were still in their box. Oh well, better get my glasses on and read the planting instructions.
"Ranunculus." That's what it said on the label. The flowers in the picture looked like anemones; but they were not anemones. Did I dare ask my husband to drive me back the next morning so that I could exchange them? Not likely. Not only would he object to the task, he'd give me a lecture. He'd probably accuse me of losing my control when I got into a garden center. Maybe he'd even call me some name, like plantaholic, or something.
The birds were singing their spring song and the air was perfumed by apple blossoms as I stuck those ranunculus roots into soil, grateful for illumination from the lane light at the back of our property.
As I rinsed off my garden gloves the next morning, I decided that maybe it was time to quit planting and planning. Maybe it was time to bring the lemonade outdoors and to watch catnip and snapdragons grow. Oh yes, and to see that those ranun - what's-their-names looked like in the flesh as each one of them came up.