There are no photos for today's entry.
You know why?
Because it would have been just too sad...
I have come to the lamentable conclusion that to be a gardener you must also be a masochist.
Only two short days ago I was admiring and delighting in the prolific blooms of the geraniums in my window boxes. These are the same geraniums I dig up every fall, mercilessly prune and over-winter in my daughter's chilly playroom.
This summer they have thanked me for my year-round attention and care by exploding with red, white and salmon colored blossoms. No lie, about thirty flower heads per plant.
See? Prolific.
Well, just before five this morning we had a punishing rainstorm. And I mean PUNISHING.
Do you know what happens to geraniums that sport thirty plus beautiful, heavy flower heads, after a punishing rainstorm? In the shallow confines of a window box, no less...?
Yeah.
Nothing good.
Just a sad aftermath of confetti-like, rain battered, mud caked, limp and plastered to everything petals.
And broken stems.
And up-rooted... roots.
In other words, a mess.
After re-tucking exposed roots and dealing with broken stems I was forced to lessen the remaining strain on the plants by pruning what rain drenched flower heads still remained intact.
As if we both hadn't already endured enough.
Sigh.
I know they will recover. And go on to bloom again. I know they are merely plants. I know there is a deeper lesson to be drawn from here. Perhaps something about feeling proud of an accomplishment I have shockingly little to both do with and evidently zero control over. Namely how beautiful my geraniums once looked.
And yet, still.
For all I do know, there is a part of me that puzzles over why I sign on to go through this willingly every single year.
It's like the warning you give to children whose generally before bed playing turns wild and manic.
"It will only end in tears..."
It's like the warning you give to children whose generally before bed playing turns wild and manic.
"It will only end in tears..."
