Garden Party

I enjoy schoolrooms for the same reason I enjoy gardens: I delight in the people I find there. 

Certainly, flowers are people.  Even our language recognizes this when it likens humans to their rooted counterparts.  Consider the shrinking violet, the clinging vine (probably a morning glory), and the rambling rose.

But these aren't the only people in the flower beds.  That frilly mass of pink near the front are petunias, a fussy bunch of maiden aunts.  "Careful dear, not so clumsy," they chide as you cultivate.  "Old bones, brittle bones, you know.  There now, see what you've done!  Snapped my left stem.  Clumsy creature!  Gardeners were more careful when I was a girl."

No protest that it was an accident will avail you.  You can't win an argument with a petunia.

Mums are also complainers, albeit not so fussy.  They don't mind a chill, but they do loathe wet feet.  You'll be informed of this not in polite, confidential whispers but most vociferously‑-they can be heard from behind the junipers.  My garden, regrettably, lies over a clay subsurface.  This serves to compound the din.  A rainy season around my yard is deafening.

Azaleas too have a fetish about their feet.  They are well bred young men, but with a singular eccentricity‑-they want to go barefoot.  I've learned to be very firm with them and insist they wear socks of mulch.  "No good can come from going barefoot in the rain," I admonish.  "It makes for riotous living and libertinism."  They are too gentlemanly to snigger, of course, but they do give a knowing smile.  And I notice in May, despite my every effort, a few bare toes still appear.  In gardens as in classrooms, boys will be boys.

I am far firmer, however, with the pansies.  I won't give in to their hypochondria.  Transplant a pansy and it goes into a theatrical swoon, a portrayal of Camille that can make the world forget Garbo.  Ruthless measures are called for when these violas go into their act, and I fling a bucket of cold water on them unapologetically.  Spluttering, they straighten up at once, but they neither forgive nor forget.  For the rest of the season they'll outstare me every chance.

But October is the best time to be in my garden.  Only the children, the marigolds can be seen.  They're a rowdy lot, indestructible, and unabashed by any demands for modesty.  Raucously they'll crowd and push each other; defiantly they'll remain awake until frost.  But in late October I firmly tuck them into bed.  "You won't be lonely," I promise them.  "The dreaming queens lie near you."

And it's true.  For unseen in the October garden, beneath the gentle earth, rest slumbering daffodils.  They will not wake till called by the winter solstice.  Then, breaking into the icy world, they'll inch their way valiantly toward their spring coronation.  Each year, triumphant, they prove their right to reign.  For this they survive the bitter blows of frost; for this they endure the false promises of thaw.  They know, as do the school children, that tomorrow will be theirs.  And aware of this also, I bless and delight in them.  Their day will come, and what more could be wished?