Black Rose

Dear Reader

When spring slides toward summer, and the flood of color from my azaleas has faded, the heavy heads of my peonies have given way to a dance of daylilies, my flower beds are approaching peak. I like mixed gardens, cottage gardens, shade gardens, herb gardens, sunny cutting gardens. I have nothing formal—formality wouldn’t work for me, or my land. I live on a rocky hillside, with rough, uneven ground, but love finds a way. And I love flowers.

I have a long, long stream of raised beds behind my house, and more lining the land down my long front slope. They’re a lot of work to maintain, and a great joy for me. In summer, I have purple floods of centaurea, feathery red heads of monarda, cheery yellow petals of coreopsis, pools of sage, and oceans of black-eyed Susans. The columbine and coralbells are done for the season, but there’s always something new budding up or bursting out. Veronica, coneflowers, verbena, garden phlox, nasturtium. At a recent trip to a garden center, my son commented that I probably had everything in the place already. Because I rarely see a plant I can resist, there’s always something spilling or spearing or spreading.

So are the weeds I hunt out and destroy like a soldier on an endless mission.

In the shade, my astilbes are fanning their soft plumes, and my hostas are islands of soothing green. The deer love the hostas, and I love the deer. But that doesn’t stop me from warding them off. I pour bags of dried blood and spray gallons of vile-smelling deer repellent annually. And have been known to run out of the house waving my arms like a madwoman if I spot a deer snacking on my dianthus or morning glories. I have dogs, but they don’t seem to be interested in guarding my flowers against Bambi.

Take a walk in the garden. Pull a weed, smell a flower. See if it doesn’t make you smile.

Nora Roberts