One of the wondrous things about gardening are the surprises that emerge every day, at a moment’s notice. I just noticed that some bug is stripping the leaves on a viburnum and I am waging a one-man war on the slugs and armyworms that are eating my broccoli. These type of surprises are expected in that you realize that something will emerge that thwarts the ideal we all have of gardening in the winter when we dream of our yards. No one dreams of fighting fungus, bugs, draught, etc. but rather reclining in a chair with a mint julep in hand while birds sing nearby and butterflies overhead delivering Martha Graham-choreographed maneuvers.
As the weather warms we all battle to obtain our fantasy but this year something marvelous and totally unexpected occurred: foxgloves. We have been planting foxgloves for years and for the last three or four mother nature has taken over sowing the seed for us. This became exaggerated last year when we noticed a hillside that started to get some sun was no longer barren mud but filled with foxgloves.
In their first year they covered the hill with their thick rosettes popping up between tuffs of crab grass and wild rye that had not been eaten by the deer. We worried if they would survive the winter but as always they came back to life in March (truth be told they never really went dormant) and last week they burst into bloom.
Initially it was a few errant spikes with a bell or two of white, pink and purple flowers. In a few days the hillside burst into bloom with hundreds of spikes and thousands of flowers reaching for the sky. And unlike other flowers, the deer have given the area a wide berth.
The palate of shapes and colors reminds me of Monet’s shapes and gardens of Givenchy, France. And it is so lovely it is sobering that chance and the hand of nature created it so much better than anything I could have done myself.
