J brings home a red rose for me every Friday. Gus gets a bouquet for me on Tuesday nights when we bring dinner over. It keeps a constant vase of flowers on my table before my own cutting garden flowers are ready. Sometimes I cheat and take a branch of rhododendrons or lilac, or as here, a few snips of pink astilbe.
I was going through the pictures recently looking for something I never found (like 35 years old) but came across images taken when my entire area was all for flowers, with Dahlias larger than my face. Bouquets were everywhere, in every room; even in the bathroom, and the kitchen and living room had several. Especially into September when the threat of frost had me running out every evening covering all the rows with bedsheets until I gave in to Mother Nature and cut as much as I could. Flowers stood in buckets as I picked ’em since all the vases and even drinking glasses were filled.
Someday when I am old I will go back to that, tending beauty that I see in grapes and beans and tomato plants for now.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology