Spring is my favorite season -- perhaps because I was born in April, perhaps just because of all the plants pushing themselves out of the ground or blooming like there's no tomorrow. The creeping phlox, daffodils, crocus, and lilac blossoms have faded by now, but the irises, california poppies, viburnum, azaleas, mock orange, and rhododendrun are loaded with flowers. I love it! It's not that I don't love summer flowers too, but the spring flowers herald warmth and renewal after winter's bareness in a way that I crave.
I'm not the only one in the family who loves flowers. Maia picks bouquet after bouquet, for me and for others. It took me a long time to get her to keep stems on her flowers rather than just decapitating them. We've been floating blossoms in water for years!
These days she generally keeps the stems on the flowers, but last week when our friends were visiting she and Nikhil had fun making floating bouquets with flowers picked from around the yard. I thought they were pretty neat.
I offered Maia one of the garden beds to plant any way she wanted, by the way, thinking she'd grow carrots and peas or something (somehow forgetting that she's my child who won't touch vegetables). She declared she was planting flowers only and that they would be for picking bouquets all year long!
