Every spring, when the snow finally melts and the soil begins to wake up again, I anxiously await the new shoots of green from our perennial flower beds. Even though the name – perennial – means EVERY YEAR, I still feel a thrill that they come back! And they’re bigger and more beautiful with each passing year, which is especially amazing since they have to start all over every spring after a long, hard freeze. This is not the land of constant kale and 8 foot tall fennel, like out west. Nevertheless, it did not take me long, living at Lostview Farm, to decide we should grow our flower gardens. I wanted to walk out of the farmhouse to see an eden of perennial varieties.
But where to start? Outside the house, we had a whole lot of lawn for a yard, but very little else. And I had a whole lot of enthusiasm, but very little education. This is where the real story begins. This is where we come to know an amazing community of talented and generous people, many of whom are master gardeners with a wealth of information and experience and absolutely amazing gardens.
A few years ago, I was invited to dig perennials at a friend’s farm just 25 minutes from our place. Her beautiful gardens – designed but wild and lush – contained so many varieties, I couldn’t keep straight all the names and details without taking notes: sedum, lady’s mantle, snakeweed, peony, coneflower, aster, astilbe, flox, lamb’s ear, bee balm, wild ginger, and iris, daffodil, lily, and on and on. After a quick tour, we dug. And dug. I’m talking about slicing a spade down the middle of so many plants; cutting them up like a piece of toast to share. In little time, my van was packed with buckets and boxes of perennials from Jody’s garden. I brought them home and began to lay them out in the empty space, ready to transplant these gifts. This would become the beginning of a sweet tradition. A tradition where I show up – to Jody’s, and now Bill’s, and Joni’s – in the spring and dig up new varieties from their ever-expanding spaces to transplant into our own growing gardens at home.
I love walking out of the house in the morning to see our friends’ plants flourishing in our garden. It is a quilt of our community and a constant reminder of the generosity we have been shown here from so many good people in countless ways. Our perennial gardens are growing, beginning to fill out, and finally hinting at the eden I have imagined. I will be so honored to pull out my spade and slice through the plants to dig up and pass on to someone else – expanding the reach of the enduring plants, hard work, and community of friends with land to share.
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