Mum's the Word

Work at this time of year is filled with stupidity. There's nothing to do about it but take a deep breath, put my head down, and keep walking. Things will be fine soon, just not now.

After work yesterday, I was feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. I stopped at the grocery store, cursing the fact that there is no fairy who brings me bananas and yogurt. On the way inside, I saw a sign that stopped me short.

There was a whole table of glorious mums for $1.99.

I came home with the white and deep purple ones pictured here, as well as two plants for friends.

I hope there is enough time for them to establish themselves before winter. Mums should really be planted in the spring so they have ample time to get comfortable before winter hits, but good luck finding a mum to buy in the spring! Instead, they're forced to bloom in greenhouses and sold in the autumn. Many people in the Midwest treat them as annuals, but they're really perennials who are treated badly.

Poor mums.

My mood greatly improved and fortified by bananas and yogurt, I planted the white one in a front flower bed beside a mystery plant/weed. (I've e-mailed the Master Gardener helpline with a photo to see if someone can identify it. I built that bed, and I'm sure I didn't plant it, but it looks so healthy...) The deep purple one joined some white salvia and a perennial geranium around the mailbox.

I get such pleasure from plants. I love to pull them out of their pots, tease their roots apart, and put them in the ground beside other, hopefully healthy, plants, and carefully water them. I always imagine them to be hopeful--hopeful that this new home is a permanent one, hopeful that they will find good soil, nice neighbors, and plenty of food and water. I imagine them stretching out their roots and breathing a sigh of relief that they don't hit the plastic sides of a pot. I imagine them happy.

It's just what I needed yesterday. Well, that and bananas and yogurt.