Timeless Tuesday: Perennials

We purchased our home four April's ago and moved in before Spring had officially sprung.  Within a few short days of our move I noticed tulips and hyacinths popping up in the gardens and even a few in the yard.  I cursed the previous home owner and screamed at the flowers.  I've never been a fan of perennials and these happened to land in just about every place that I would have thought to plant annuals. I spent the entire first Spring in our new home trying to cut back and dig up those pesky perennials so that I could plant my impatients and geraniums just where I intended too.  Take that tulips!  I had thought the perennials had succumbed to the battle I had waged against them when sure enough in our second April they popped right back up with a vengeance - even in places I swore I dug them up.  That Summer I again fought the perennials and was sure we were done with them for good.  Then Spring number three rolled around.  I had a 6 month old baby at the time and little energy to mess with the gardens.  Though I'm sure the tulips bloomed I don't recall seeing them much through the foggy haze of sleeplessness and the worries of first time parenting.  They got away scot-free that season.

As I embark upon the fourth April in our beloved safe haven from the world I've realized that the tulips have popped up again and that actually I don't mind the perennials so much after all.  As a matter of fact, I think I'm establishing a new love affair with them.  It finally occurred to me that these little yellow blooms relentlessly pop up every year and in doing so make no requests, have no demands and really want for nothing other than the soggy and slightly sunny environment that Spring naturally offers to them.  Unlike my treasured impatients and geraniums, they aren't begging me to be watered, they aren't summoning me to prune, they really aren't doing much of anything other than offering a splash of Spring to our yard and reminding me that although I've questioned it's arrival Summer will soon show it's pretty face again.  I'm so glad that after four years my eyes have been opened to the sweet simplicity of perennials.  Maybe these flowers are a reminder that given enough time your heart can be warmed to just about anything that is willing to show up perennially.