Columns: In the Garden: Mum’s the Word

The thing is, though — and you have no idea how it pains me to admit this — through two kids and four cats and one Very Large Dog and flood and drought and wind and hail, those mums have been there for me. And it’s not as if I’m coddling them. I never fertilize that bed. I don’t even water it. Once in a while (shut up, Mom), I pinch the plants back. But I don’t do it gently, or gingerly, or lovingly, the way I prune my roses or look after my lupine. Those mums get no respect from me. They don’t seem to mind a bit. In fact, they’re flourishing, self-seeding and spreading, hybridizing haphazardly, springing (autumning?) forth each year with new variations of their white-buff-maroon-and-the-occasional-yellow color scheme. The results aren’t anything worth alerting Burpee to. And yet …

I’m coming around. I’m starting, sort of, to look forward to what they’ll come up with next. To admire my mums’ devil-may-care insouciance: You don’t like us? Up yours. We’ll spread. In a world filled with finicky plants, there’s something to be said for the stalwart mum.

I’m also contemplating rescinding that spousal ban on mum bouquets. The flowers seem emblematic of my marriage, 26 years in. Doug and I don’t work very hard at being wed to one another. We don’t do date nights. I’ve never dressed up like a French maid for him (nor he for me). We’re too busy working and paying bills and worrying about the kids. Yet we stay on together, and we’re pretty happy most of the time. We’re marital mums.

Besides, all autumn long, I pick my mums and bring them inside. It’s gotten to where (again, this is a lot like marriage) the smell doesn’t even bother me much.

“Those are pretty,” Doug says, admiring my latest vaseful. “What are they?”

 I tell him: “Peonies.”

Sandy Hingston blogs about gardening at lavenderandlarkspur.wordpress.com.