A weekend full of flowers

And berry bushes. And magnolia trees...

On Friday around 5:00 pm, my husband called me outside. I was finishing up with work and the slow cooker was seeping a cheesy fragrance into our small living space, setting the mood for dinner and a board game with friends. I walked to the south-facing door to find a soggy but temperate mid-April evening that is synonymous with spring (but that most people in upstate New York and northern New England call mud season).

Kyle was standing in the field urging me forward. Immediately, I knew what he was trying to show me: the spring ephemerals had arrived. Two years ago—our first spring living on this property—his 20/20-vision eyes (so unlike my own, this man is truly the yang to my yin) noticed white dots speckling the hill, which has a cleared path but is otherwise covered in trees, both upright and fallen.

Already, we knew there was bloodroot in this area; when we moved onto the land that previous fall, while on a walk with our new dog, Kyle squatted down (like any normal plant-person does), cracked open a boring brown root, and smiled in a way that I know can only mean “I knew it.” The plant’s bright red sap was startling. Kyle went on to recall some of bloodroot’s medicinal applications, but upon further research found many to require expert knowledge (hence its warning hue). When spring showed up, we ventured back to find the knotty network had carpeted the forest floor in dainty white blooms, as all ephemerals pop before tree leaves begin to block sunlight from reaching the ground.

As much as I dream of being a modern-day witch with a home apothecary, bloodroot is clearly no beginner’s herb. This—paired with the fact that it is now considered vulnerable or at-risk due to habitat loss and invasive ants—means that I decided to only pluck a few stout stems. As I hinted at, it’s not a plant to mess with; bloodroot’s sap can be damaging to the skin, so if you find it, please don’t rub sap all over your body. Ingestion will cause vomiting or worse, so I don’t recommend that, either.

Bloodroot's spring ephemerals, which I carefully plucked for a small bouquet (for my mom, of course)

As if to start the weekend with a running theme, the next afternoon, after getting home from our regular Saturday jiu jitsu class, we decided to plant sunflowers. As this is only my second year growing flowers from seed, I am convinced that there is no more gratifying plant to see push through soil than the sunflower. That’s because its little shell—which we toss out the car window after our teeth have extracted the innards—is often still clinging on. There is something so moving about this sight; once protective armor, that black and white-striped sheath tries mightily to hang onto the new life it has bore, not wanting to say goodbye. Flower friends, please share other satisfying sprouts—I will add them to my list for 2026, which grows by the day.

Granted it’s still quite cold here in zone 5b, with frosty nights making threats in the 10-day forecast, most everything is still in our greenhouse. But since sunflowers aren’t one of Kyle’s cash crops, we figured we’d get them in the ground. Together, we pushed aside a line of hay bales that he’d previously set there to ready the ground beneath. No clearing or digging required thanks to his forethought, we planted 50 soil blocks. Our plan is to fully line the edge of our property (we’re about halfway) and, in between each sunflower, plant ornamental corn. By September, I expect it to look like a row of full-throated autumn. Public service announcement: that evening, Kyle picked the first tick of the season off his neck. Wear big hats and do nightly tick checks, friends.

Soil blocks of sunflowers were placed every 18 inches then nestled into the earth and gently covered with hay to retain moisture and suppress weeds (hay not pictured)

Somewhere along the way, Kyle and I developed a Sunday morning ritual of driving to Stewart’s to get hot or iced coffee, depending on the season. It is somewhat of a silly ritual because there are few things I love more than grinding beans and listening to the coffee pot fill each morning. But we have come to count on this weekly practice, wherein the dog sits on my lap and we see if we can spot the alpacas on our five-minute drive. It happened to be the fifth birthday of Luna, our Border Collie-Australian Shepherd mix, who got spoiled all day long—I think it went to her head because, after dinner that night, she reached onto my parents’ kitchen counter for the last slice of cheesecake, swallowing it whole. You’re not allowed to get mad at a birthday girl (those are the rules, I don’t make them) so we shrugged it off.

Between our coffee trip and dinner, though, we dedicated our hours to being productive outdoors. Kyle worked on some farm chores while I continued to pursue my projects. This time, instead of flowers, I tackled the buckets of bare root plants my mother-in-law dropped off: five blueberry bushes, three cranberry bushes, four elderberries, and four magnolia trees. Bare root plants are hardly exciting to look at, and difficult to imagine in their full glory. And while I have absolutely no idea where four magnolia trees will go, I spent hours mixing coco coir with perlite with compost and packing every large planter I could find before adding the babies and topping them off with mulch.

Inside the greenhouse, all sorts of flowers and vegetables are getting started. Outside, bare root blueberry bushes were planted in containers. It will take 2-3 years before they bear enough fruit to be harvested, and more like 8-10 years until fully grown.

Will each of my bushes/trees make it to adulthood? Most likely not, but I’m determined to give each an opportunity to be part of our growing homestead. Right now, they all look like twigs that I shoved into pots, but I know they hold the potential to become a meaningful part of muffins, pancakes, and granola. Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, my spring flowers are stretching taller each day. Aside from many of my double click cosmos that got too cold—even inside on a heated planting bench—I’m seeing sweet pea, Chinese forget-me-not, love in a mist, and Persian cress thrive.

Last year, when I began pursuing this hobby, I quickly realized the most cliché of things: that growing flowers is an act of immense patience. But also, it is an act of devotion. Unlike my fruit bushes or the farm’s vegetables, these flowers will not feed us. I tend to them daily because they not only brighten my living room, but they lift my spirit and allow me to share delight with another. This feels like a perfect moment to say Happy Earth Day. If you haven’t already, go smell a flower or find some grass to walk barefoot on. It’s the one day you can hug a tree in public and not look like a wierdo, so make the most of it.