A IS FOR ...

August, that paradoxical month when the ground is soft with lily petals and the begonia you toasted in July profers one spindly bud, daring you to sacrifice its attempt at rebirth for the sake of a fall chrysanthemum; the time when one part of your heart revels in the summer celebration while another chamber simultaneously contracts with anticipatory grief for the leisure that is all too quickly slipping away. Yes, A is for autumn, but not quite yet.

A is also for Amaranthus and astor, the two new flowers in this year’s garden. Like so many great things, they came to us by chance rather than by design. Our usual spring routine takes us to the L.Y. cairns plant sale, where we consult the list I made the previous autumn and buy flowers arranged conveniently in al phabetical order, rushing past the A’s to get an early shot at the begonias and calendula. But this year we couldn’t make it to L.Y. And so, wandering in greenhouses with no recognizable maps to help us with our lists, we ventured home with two new A flowers, unremarkable in appearance, their properties yet unknown. .

Our reference source described amaranthus as “a flower found in old-fashioned gardens”, commonly called Tassel Flower, or Love Lies Bleeding. Love Lies Bleeding! Blood in the flowerbed? Maybe not. But it also revealed a dark side. Amaranthus comes in sixty varieties. Some of them are also called Pigweed. Oh no, not Pigweed, not that fuzzy-flowered pest that grew in the chicken yard! Remembering the farm of my youth, and the many days my father spent in the struggle against the weeds, I decided not to tell my father I was cultivating a cousin of pigweed.

We tucked our amaranthus in among the leafy purple coleus. By early June the plants had overtaken the coleus and were sprouting tiny fuzzy blood-coloured icicles which grew longer and fatter as the plants grew taller, touching their tips to the ground. Love lay bleeding. Pigweed, if I remember correctly, was a very hardy plant, not the kind to fade away or die of its own volition. It’s cousin has shown itself to be similarly persistent. Since none of the icicles has yet fallen, and new ones are still under production, the plants now hang them thickly by the dozen, attracting fascinated curiosity from all who pass them by.

Astors, said the book, are the reward for those who are willing to wait beyond the glory of impatiens. Impatient as we were with the waiting in our short Alberta summer, we sat back to see what would happen. June brought sturdy stocks of promising green. July grew them thick and tall with sprouting buds. But August brought the astors out in lacy bouquets of white and pink and purple, enough to fill a dozen tall vases if you wanted to pick them, though we don’t want to pick them.

So A is for asters and amaranthus, to admire in August, after bidding farewell to the luscious lilies and the toasted begonias. And P is for pigweed, but you didn’t hear me mention that.