Flower Folly

A couple of weeks ago, I was at an impromptu neighborhood barbecue. Most of us are avid gardeners and were excited about the early and warm spring we’d been having. We ate outside and were noticing that the lilacs were just getting ready to pop open.

I told the group about the anxiety I had about the lilacs blooming the year I got married, since we had decided to use bouquets of lilacs as our wedding flowers. All was well that year. The lilacs came in about three days before our big day and the morning of our wedding, I cut 24 vases of lilacs. One of the women roared with laughter at the folly of depending on the blooming of a flower for such a major event! I had never thought about my dream of being married among the lilacs as folly, but her words were true. Depending on the year, the lilacs may not have been in bloom – even though I had selected a date toward the end of the possible bloom “schedule.”

And, I had been fooled by Mother Nature on other occasions. When I was married, my ex and I held a “Tulip Dinner” on our deck each spring—typically in early May. Several years, it was a lovely dinner and the tulips were in their glory. Other years, it was warm enough to eat outside, but I had to stick plastic tulips in the ground, because the real things were not quite ready yet. And, one year, we had to eat inside because it snowed the night of the Tulip Dinner!

Am I the only one who has “counted on” a flower or shrub to bloom for a special occasion? What are your “Flower Follies”?