Michelle Goff, mystery writer

For the most part, I’ve never been the type of gal who cultivates flowers. Sure, I bought a few hanging baskets the first spring I lived in my house, but that experience confirmed what I had always suspected about flowers – that you expend time, money and energy toward something that lives for only a few weeks.

What’s more, unless the flowers reside outside a window, you can’t enjoy their beauty. So, for that reason and others, I decided it was easier to enjoy my neighbors’ flowers than to go to the trouble of planting my own. (Yes, this philosophy also applies to exterior Christmas decorations.)

But after my dog, the lovely and talented Mia Frances Goff, died, I decided to plant a wildflower garden in her memory. The garden, which also honored the lovely and talented Tom Petty, grew in front of my porch and was visible from my living room window.

The wildflower garden didn’t turn out to be as magnificent as I had hoped. In fact, a guest remarked that my flower garden resembled a marijuana patch. So, I pulled up the weeds, which left a rectangle of dirt enclosed by decorative edging.

Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the trouble I’d gone through to obtain those decorative edges, I might have grown a garden of dirt. But I remembered the broken nails, bloody knuckles and dozen of trips from the car to the rectangle to transport said edges, and I said to myself, “Self, you’ve always admired the beauty of tulips.”

So, I bought tulips and received tremendous help planting them last fall. Due to our mild winter, I spied the bulbs pushing green leaves through the dirt in late February. Every day, I inspected the garden and noted slight additions. By mid-March, the rectangle was resplendent in yellow, light purple and dark purple tulips.

There’s no other way to put this – I became obsessed with the tulips and momentarily considered planting them throughout my yards. I snapped photos of the tulips from various angles and at various times of the day. I took photos of the tulips in the shade, in the late evening, in the full glory of the sun. I took photos of individual tulips and groups of tulips representing all three stunning colors. I shared so many photos with friends and family and on social media that I probably caused people to say to themselves, “Self, if I see one more expletive picture of those expletive tulips…”

But I knew my time with the tulips was finite and, alas, it is with great regret that I report the tulips are wilting.

Although this expected development has given me a case of the sads, I’m already studying on ways to improve next year’s harvest. I plan to buy more soil as well as additional bulbs to replace the few that didn’t yield this spring. And I have a phone full of photos to remind me of the beauty of this year’s tulips as well as the compliment from a visitor who assumed the near flawless flowers were fake.

Take it from me, that’s much better than hearing that your flowers look like weed(s).