It’s spring, and my kitchen counters are filling up with tiny cheap pots of plants I can’t resist–grape hyacinth, crumple-leafed primrose, tiny daffodils.
Today I went even wilder and brought home a huge handful of sweet peas. I love their rumply delicate look, their colors like spun-sugar candy or honeymoon nighties.
I never buy cut flowers, and I could have resisted these if they didn’t remind me so much of that poem:
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness…
Yes, these sweet peas are brought to you now by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)…and maybe, just a bit, by the month of April.
4 responses so far ↓
1 sjf@b... // Apr 9, 2004 at 7:51 pm
Betsy, I can’t see how a pot of plants can be “cheap”, “inexpensive” perhaps, but surely not “cheap.”
2 Betsy Devine // Apr 9, 2004 at 11:21 pm
Simon, lol! I stand corrected. My only excuse is that “inexpensive” has 4 syllables where the less exact “cheap” has 1.
3 Julie Leung // Apr 10, 2004 at 7:26 am
Thanks, Betsy. I like sweet peas too. I planted some last fall and another set of seeds again this spring – just to make sure we have plenty :) The vibrant colors, lush petals and perfume seduce me. Where we live there is a sweet pea contest in July: wish you could come! I like the poem too. Now when I see my sweet peas I’ll remember your description: “rumply delicate” – wow! I always thought they were romantic but “honeymoon nighties” seems so apt…and even more enticing…:)
4 Anonymous // Apr 10, 2004 at 7:45 pm
Thank you for sweet posies, Betsy! I can’t wait for our annual June 1st statewide planting! (It takes that long to make sure we will have no more snow and for the ground to thaw out.)
Robert Herrick Rocked!