Beyond time with my family, this year I’m celebrating a small, quiet dream come true: a lush bouquet of Lilies of the Valley, freshly picked from beneath my snowball viburnum — where they’ve finally, gloriously, decided to settle their roots and stay.
For decades I’ve envied them in other gardens — those “white coral bells upon a slender stalk” — with the particular chagrin of a gardener who has tried and failed more than a few times. For many a February I planted the pips, waited, and then tried again. Then one spring morning there they were: leaves unfurling like green sails, stems bobbing like finely flexing wires, and those delicate white bell-shaped flowers, impossibly perfect — and then there’s that fragrance.
Here’s to making a few of your small, quiet dreams come true.
