My Aunt Dorothy’s Peonies

I have a bit of a reputation for killing plants.  It is well deserved…well deserved.  But today, as I tried to break the land speed record for lawn mowing (storms were ‘a comin’) I noticed a very special plant was in bloom for the very first time.  It was my Aunt Dorothy’s peonies.

I have often tried to explain what an “Aunt Dorothy” is to people who have never had one.

She was my grandmother, Mabel’s, sister.  She was a principal in the New Buffalo school system, never married, and managed to be the perfect calm foil to Mabel’s intense crazy.  She baked the best cookies, made everyone their own Christmas stocking, and had the patience of a saint.  I guess you could say she was our personal Mary Poppins.

When she passed away and we sold the little cottage she had lived in, my Mom dug up some of her amazing peonies and planted them around our house.  Then, when Mom and Dad up and moved to Michigan, she dug them up again and gave me some.

Peonies are finicky relocaters with the best of gardeners helping them along.  So I didn’t have the highest of hopes that my skills would see them through.  Add in the fact that it takes a few years after the move before they will flower, and I figured the beautiful pink blooms would never grace my backyard.

When I saw them today I got a little weepy, okay, pretty damn weepy.  Sometimes you forget how much you miss someone.  I miss her A LOT.

So a pretty average day with a laundry list of crap that had to get done suddenly transformed into one of my best days.

My Aunt Dorothy’s peonies are blooming!