Frost

There is a light frost on the last Saturday of October. At first the dahlias look okay, but as the day wears on the blooms become papery and tinged with brown. It is time for me to say goodbye to those that remain.

There were times this year that I thought that I hated flowers. I didn’t go to the garden every day when the flowers were blooming, didn’t make the bouquets that I thought I would, didn’t share the beauty like I wanted to. The dahlias showed signs of sickness and throughout the year I threw away plant after plant.

Many plants looked okay and I realized that they could still take my breath away with their beauty. I tried to soak it in but the garden felt tainted to me and there was a part of me that held back, a part of me that knew I couldn’t get too attached.

When the frost comes and blackens the leaves that had once been green, leaves I had questioned and pored over, I go to the garden and throw them away. I wait until the November sun is warm, everything basked in hues of gold and brown. I dig clumps of perfectly formed tubers and try not to think about what could have been.

I save only a few plants, plants I have tested for disease, plants that feel safe to plant again next year. But the rest have to go. Maybe some are healthy, maybe some would be okay to save, but I know that my anxiety can’t handle it. And so I whisper goodbye to their beauty, shedding my jacket on a warm day in November. 

When my son gets home from school he sees the pile of tuber clumps and smashes them on the pavement in the driveway. I let him, the clumps splitting and breaking apart.

When the garden is bare, I feel relief and I make a promise to myself to start again. The diseased roses will also have to go and so will the large azalea that I never really liked anyway. But this gives me a blank slate. The back garden won’t just be for dahlias. Next year there will be a perimeter of allium, their oniony scent and globe-like flowers a deterrent for aphids. There will be herbs dotted among the flowers, herbs that repel pests and attract the bees. There will be snapdragons and zinnias and cosmos and celosia—an ecosystem of beauty.

I can always start again, taking with me the lessons I’ve learned, lessons I learned the hard way but learned just the same. This is a promise of the seasons, the chance to start again every year, the knowledge that there will be another spring. But for now I will embrace these cooler days, embrace the ice and the cold when it comes, these days where I can curl up inside and rest.