Froggie Pix

Froggie & Peunias

May is upon us. The air is scented with lilacs and lily of the valley. Swirls of cherry blossoms mix with clouds of raspy pollen. Soft gray light drifts through the bedroom window at 4:30, turns clear and bold by noon, and settles into dusk just after eight. The woodpecker, tapping his amorous code into the garden shed, is my alarm clock, compelling me to fly out of bed, slide my bare feet into wellies, race out to the back yard, flail my arms, and convince him to take his staccatos elsewhere.

May is the month Cape Cod really wakes up. Lights come on in the big, dark houses nearest the water; landscapers’ ubiquitous trucks roar down Main Street, shedding mulch and grass clippings; clam shacks unshutter; “See You In The Spring,” signs disappear; and everyone, including me, is flocking to the nurseries for plants.

My house has three windowboxes; the Mary Jane Merritt School for Girls (an outbuilding named for my mother) has two; and there are pots to be filled at the clothesline, the patio, the Italian courtyard. All of this is a daunting task for a person who likes to dress up every day, dislikes work clothes, and has no gardening aptitude at all. My father, who grew glorious gardens and loved the whole process, would wonder at this genetic deviation.

I am a lost soul at the nurseries, wandering in tattered petticoats and silken shreds like Miss Havisham in the once-upon-a-time gardens of Satis House. The flowers and plants are beautiful, yes, but what goes where, what goes with what, what likes this, what can’t tolerate that! For me, it’s an algebraic nightmare…except that the numbers and letters have names like Thunbergia, Dichondra, Centaurea cyanus, Helenium amarum.

But this year, the gods have intervened and sent me to a little family-owned nursery near my house. The people there are kind and patient, overlooking my ineptitude, confusion, and fight/flight emotional responses. They sell the kind of plants children understand: petunias, geraniums, marigolds, nasturtiums, morning glories, zinnias. They offer simple advice as to what goes where and what likes what, making this planting challenge if not fun, at least feasible.

And so I wrap a black apron over the party skirts and don the dirty gardening gloves and slice open the bags of potting soil and tuck the baby plants into the warm earth and whisper a little prayer and hope that my father hears, understands, smiles, and offers his blessing: a green thumbs-up.