Boston in full spring bloom is an astonishing sight to behold. Even beneath an overcast sky, one that constantly hinted at rain and occasionally spit some out, the blossoms carried their beauty through the universe. As we closed out our 9th wedding anniversary in the city where it happened, we slowed our steps to savor every last moment.
The flowers seemed to join in the celebration as well, nodding their droopy Sunday morning sleepy-heads with the merest rustling of a breeze. The tulips here were at their peak ~ further along than their more exposed Public Garden counterparts. These isolated microclimates of little front yards warmed by the sun and buffered from the wind are often ahead of their brethren. They also sustain more delicate species, sometimes allowing for an extra Zone of hardiness.
Through the frame of a glossy black iron gate, portals of floral majesty deceptively hint at expansive meadows of wildflowers. An optical trick, it’s a nifty way of making a tiny space seem larger: a pocket of beauty held in a single gaze, multiplying into a thousand levels of memory.
Beneath the tulips and bleeding hearts was a groundcover of Vinca, in purple pinwheels of bloom. When the bulbs die back, this ground cover will sustain the space through the summer, its handsome dark green foliage backing the occasional re-bloom.
Still, nothing will compare with this stellar spring show, the first flush of the season when we need it the most.
My love of tulips has been constant since I was a little kid, yet I don’t plan them that often at my own home. Probably because they are so fleeting and unreliable when compared to more stalwart perennials and shrubs. Tulips are better admired in large public beds, or in the smaller private gardens of someone else, where they can decide whether to simply pull them up when the show is over or attempt to get another year or two out of the bulbs. I’m not emotionally ready to make such decisions if it’s at all possible to avoid them.
I have similar issues with pansies – I love to see them in these early cool days of the season, but I’d never plant them in my own garden, as happy and bright as their faces may be. Perhaps one day I will appreciate the temporary beauty they provide and embrace what we know will never last. There is charm in that, somewhere, and I will seek it out one day.
For now, I will lift my eyes to the cherries – we have a Kwanzan in our backyard that is also in full bloom, and it’s glorious. Bridging Boston and upstate New York with the beauty of their pink blossoms, these exquisite pom-poms are the perfect bookends for an anniversary weekend.
We made it to Braddock Park, where the fountain was running for another season. It trickled the soothing sound of water all the way up to the second floor window. As soon as it got just a little warmer, we would open it up and listen to the tranquil song – a song of spring, of summer, of love.
