The Lenten Rose is usually either the latest or earliest bloomer in the garden – and sometimes it is both. The last few times I’ve been in Boston, they have been holding onto their blooms, even during the wintry conditions that recent snowstorms have brought. I distinctly remember seeing their nodding heads on a dark night in an Uber ride with Andy. They were ghostly then, and oddly reassuring in their seasonal defiance.
During our recent gathering with the kids, I found this stand of them on Braddock Park, blooming away as if it were spring again. Such resilience is admirable, especially when so much of winter is yet to come.
Our own Lenten rose has never done an end-of-the-season show. Our winters are much too harsh, often much too early, for the plant to be tricked into such a quirk. They will slumber under the last of the snow melts away in March or April, then gently rise, somewhat torn and tattered until I clean them up and make some judicious pruning decisions. They are the first sign that spring is returning, and so seeing them at any time of the year reminds me of hope.
