"You know," my gynecologist said during a visit I made to her some years ago. "Life wants to live."
This was her conclusion to the story of a woman who had come worried that she was pregnant yet knowing she couldn't be. She had had her tubes not just tied, but had had a section cut out. Yet here she was: pregnant. When my gyn operated, she discovered that the severed tubes had reached a tiny strand across the gap, like sympathetic hands, creating a bridge for the egg that became that woman’s surprise last child. "Life wants to live."
Sometimes that's hard to believe when gardeners work their fingers to the bone to get something to grow and end up skunked year after year. That's how it was with me and sweet peas, those oh-so-simple heirlooms. To everyone else, maybe, but not to me. I had been putting out sweet peas, in the ground, then as plants, for years with only anemic results; nothing like the lush displays that lure you (me) in catalogues. I had decided to give up on sweet peas and enjoy them in OTHER PEOPLE'S gardens. Enviously. Yet I went out to the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago to clip some of the parsley that sprouted from a seed I apparently dropped onto the pea gravel floor this time last year while starting plants. And lo and behold, there it was: the sweet pea!
This little guy had fallen into the gravel, had sprouted during one of the worst snowstorms in living memory, and was BLOOMING! A pair of rich mauve flowers, a lovely contrast to the sagey-green vine, were happily snugged against one of the table legs. As a result of years of poor performance when I work at it, I don’t think I’m going to try to grow sweet peas outside this year. I just don’t want to devote the space when so many other things can legitimately claim it. But I might just buy a packet of sweet peas to dump in the pea gravel at my feet in the greenhouse, and wait to see what happens.
