Bluebells and Other Old Friends, a Fifty Year Legacy

The late afternoon sun was inching toward the horizon when I made my way down the path through what I call Trillium Holler. It had been cloudy for the first part of the day and I had been busy, but when the sun brightened mid-afternoon, I hunted up my good hiking shoes ( I have to hide them from Scout, who I may have mentioned has an affinity for footwear) and set out with my sturdy stick.

This was my latest trip to check on the wildflowers, and I was afraid I had missed the trout lilies. They are sneaky little critters, and you must slip up on them at just the right moment. Last week they had no blooms and all that was visible were the spears of mottled leaves. Then it rained and the weather was too damp and cold for my old knees. Usually when I delayed more than a day or two, the bright yellow blooms would be past their prime, a mere hint of yellow against the leaf covered ground. But I was in luck. As I looked down the steep path toward a sea of bluebells I could see amongst the blue, scatterings of yellow. 

We didn’t plan it exactly, but somehow the bluebells and the trout lilies, quite on their own, have woven their own tapestry of blue and yellow that our skill could not have created. It’s my favorite color combination, so much so that I use it in just about every room in my house. 

 Sophie stayed by my side as I made my careful way through the trees on slippery dry leaves. Scout darted ahead, trying to keep Bear in sight and excited to be along for the trip, whatever the purpose was. The dogs didn’t trample anything this time and seemed to understand they shouldn’t flop down on top of the blooming things. 

We created this place, my mama and me. From just a few transplants, the bluebells flow down the hillside now, the shooting star has (finally!) begun to multiply and the dutchman’s britches has decided to bloom. There are more trillium than anyone can count, tiny anemones resemble a dusting of late snow, and, a little later, Jacks will pray under their green pulpits and larkspur will replace the earlier flowers.

Last year I found a big patch of puttyroot just up the hill from the main garden, and just today I discovered another smaller patch about twenty feet away. I don’t know how we missed it all these years or how it got there. There are one or two lonely specimens living amongst the trout lilies at the entrance to our garden. We always wondered where they came from and I guess that mystery is solved.  The columbine I moved from another spot last year is thriving and blooming and I am thinking about some fire pinks again. They have stubbornly refused to take hold down there, but maybe my luck will turn. 

The hillside leading to that holler, carved out hundreds of years ago before my ancestors made their way here, is a haven within the paradise where I live. My worries and woes slip away, and I can always find peace there. The birdsong and the music of the water that travels through the rocks at the bottom of the holler are soothing.  Or, I can listen to What a Wonderful World on my phone and reflect on my blessings. 

 

As I always do on these spring excursions, I thought of Mrs. Carothers, who introduced me to the joys of the local wildflowers over five decades ago in high school biology class. I don’t remember how to dissect a frog, I never was able to see anything under a microscope, and I doubt I could recite the classifications of living things. But my heart sings every year when I spot the bluebells and trillium. And I breathe a word of thanks to my mama, who nurtured my love of wildflower hunting and was the primary instigator of our wildflower garden. I have to admit that she did most of the work of planting and caring for the flowers that are there today. She had the green thumb that I lacked and the time to spend, in the days that I was working. She also had the foresight to know that eventually we would not be up to long hikes up and down all the other hillsides on our farm and that we would appreciate having our blooming friends closer to the house. As I huffed my way back up the hill, I was glad of that! 

Wildflower 2022