Saturday, June 15, 2013

Be Still My Lamprocapnos spectabilis

Sure enough, it's spring, and I've been overrun with work.  For both jobs, this time of year is like Christmas for retail stores... Home improvement peak season is April - July, and André and I are running around like mad. 

On the plus side, he's so busy that he's looking at hiring another employee.  This would be great because it would free him up for more time to do consultations and design work.  On the down side, it increases the pressure to find more and larger jobs to keep his growing crew busy.  It would also mean more paperwork for me. 

Oh, and we're incorporating.  So imagine the paperwork that I am chronically trying to dig my way out of. 

Times like this friends and family look at us and shake their heads.  We need a holiday, they say.  We need to stop and breathe and smell the roses.  Right...

Sitting on the front step for a momentary break the other morning, we took a look at the weedy excuse for a garden.  Then André pointed down and said, "isn't that a little bleeding heart bush-lette right there?"


And would you look at that he's right.  It made my day, my week, my month, and my summer, all in one glance. 

When André and I first moved out together, we had a dumpy little town house in a not so nice nieghbourhood.  But the back yard was a decent size, and I figured I'd try my hand at gardening.  Turns out that I'm not terribly good at gardening, but lucky for me, two of my favourite plants are good and hardy - lilacs and bleeding heart bushes.  Every house I've ever lived in has had these plants somewhere on the property, and I really wanted to keep the tradition. 

Fast forward a year and a half, and we've bought a house and are getting set to move.  We're in the middle of a town house row (in a much nicer neighbourhood), and there are lilacs on either end.  But there weren't any bleeding heart bushes.  No problem, I said, I'll just dig up the one that I planted at the old house, put it in a bucket, and bring it with me. 

Well, cue university life and all of the other work that comes with home ownership, and before I knew it, it was winter, the ground was frozen solid, and so was the bucket with the still-not-planted bleeding heart.  Oh, well, I said, I'll just get a new one in the spring.  Imagine my amazement when in the spring the bleeding heart just sprang right back to life in its bucket, flowering away happily.  In fact it looked so happy that I left it in the bucket for another winter.  (Ok, that's a lie, university life got in the way so bad that I again forgot about it.)

Finally, a break in the following spring and I actually planted the miracle bush in a prominent spot in the front garden.  And there it stayed happily for another few years.  The last two years it started looking a little peaky in the spring, so in my gusto to make this plant as happy as it could be, I transplanted it to a better spot in the garden away from the drier vent, and in a sunnier spot. 

And then we had a drought...

And this year my big beautiful bleeding heart bush didn't come back. 

I have no idea if there is a natural life span of these plants (they're a semi-tuberous root system, so likely they'll just keep going as long as there is water and sun and nothing eats them), but apparently 10 years (with 2 in a bucket) and a drought proved too much for this one.  I felt like I wanted to cry... despite everything else I'd done to this poor plant, I was going to miss it. 

Then André pointed out a little tuft of green amongst the weeds, just beside the spot where I had planted the old bush.  Just a wee 4" tuft of a different leafy green than the weeds.  A bleeding heart bush-lette.  There might not be flowers on it this year, but you'd better believe that it's going to be the most carefully cared for little plant on the block. 

It's perfect for the mantra that's kept me going through the last few weeks of insanity:

Next year it will be better. 

Next year I will stop and smell the roses bleeding heart flowers.