one toe into summer

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)

Now that I am a little over a month into this experiment, I thought I would do a quick progress report. Playing in the garden has been a positive experience thus far, aided in part by my attempt at practicing an easy-going, optimistic attitude. For every misadventure, there is a lesson learned.

Misadventures

• The Case of the Melting Peony


• broken/bent stems on the behemoth, one celosia plant, the remaining un-chomped rose bloom. I am uncertain as to the cause of the breaks, but I have a list of suspects: recent heavy rainfall and winds; the local fauna holding careless aerobic sessions in my backyard; our long, unusually harsh winter (in the case of the JFK rose bush only). My salvage mission consisted of extracting the broken out-of-place sunflower and laying it to rest in a yard waste bin, staking the bent celosia (as well as the other as yet upright and healthy sunflowers), and saying a prayer to Chloris for my roses. Also, Miracle Gro (c/o Mumsie, yet again).


• the Irish moss' failure to flourish. The moss seems to be stuck in Garden Limbo - neither perishing nor spreading like the carpet for faery feet that I hoped it would. I am still hoping this problem is merely a result of transplant shock and will resolve itself in time. Until then, a little magic blue dust + water never hurt anyone.

Looking Forward

• Next week: The cilantro is going places! First stop, easy butter chicken.


• I am longing to see the lavender in bloom.


• July garden tour!