Christina Metcalf

I recently moved to Texas from Florida, where I have spent the last twenty years of my life. It takes some time getting used to a move like that even though Florida and Texas are similar in many ways.

But the heat is very different and so is gardening. 

I was promised seasons when I moved to Texas.

“It does get cold here in the fall.”

“We do have ice in the winter.”

“And we have hail storms, and tornadoes but they hardly ever hit here. They always hit in <insert some other city that the speaker doesn’t live in>.” 

Whether you’re at the grocery store or the bar, these are the words you will hear.

“Oh, we’re not hot like Florida.”

As someone who has lived in both, dry heat and humidity are equally oppressive when you’re outside between the hours of noon and five. And whichever one you’re in, is the worst of the two.

With this weather information in hand, I waited about a month for it to get cooler. I was terribly excited to get my hands on the new blank slate of my yard. When it finally dropped down to 75 for about thirty seconds, I ran right out and bought my first chrysanthemum in 20 years.

Chrysanthemums just don’t grow in Florida. I don’t care what Publix tells you.

And I proudly plopped that yellow sunburst on my west-facing front porch. It was as full as a golden firecracker on July 4th, and I was in heaven.

But almost as soon as I had done this, the delightful 75° temperatures heated up to a not so delightful 95. Weeks later, we’re still in the high 80s, low 90s

Needless to say, my chrysanthemum is not happy with me.

So today I took on the daunting task of removing all the old flowers that had withered and died in the heat. Sadly, some of them never even bloomed. They’re just tight little balls with brown tassels coming out of them.

When I sat down at this task, it seemed insurmountable. There were hundreds of blooms on this beautiful plant and I had to cut away every single one of them.

I thought about doing it in front of the television. Then I thought about grabbing some headphones or even a speaker and listening to music while I did it. Maybe a podcast.

But eventually, I settled down to the task at hand and I didn’t use musical or visual distractions. I simply cut each bud, each flower that had died.

And I did so in complete quiet, minus the buzzing of grasshoppers and sniffing of my dog, Rocco.

I allowed myself to hear my thoughts. I didn’t drown them out with other stimulation.

I let them be.

I thought about the Zen Buddhists, who trace intricate patterns in the sand only to erase them and start again. The careful snipping felt a bit like that. I couldn’t tie my mind up with thoughts of when I would be finished. I just had to keep doing what I was doing.

And so I did.

I found a certain peace in clipping the flowers, knowing that there were buds just underneath them waiting for their chance to bloom.

If you don’t clear the dead parts away, instead of producing new blossoms, the plant will go to seed and begin to die off. It will see flower production time as over. Deadheading plants promotes further blossoming by redirecting energy from seed production to new blooms.

If I didn’t cut the spent blossoms away, the plant would do what many of us do in our 50s or 60s, as we see ourselves as no longer producing. Some of us wither under these thoughts.

While it’s sad to see buds that never reached their full beauty, I also know that by clipping them away I’m making room for new flowers.

I’m making room for something beautiful, a second life for my chrysanthemum.

My chrysanthemum and I are not so different. We’re both going through changes and we need to remove what isn’t working.

But unlike the mum, I have a choice in what I get rid of. Someone isn’t doing it for me.

Yet, it doesn’t happen automatically for either of us.

And it is work to get rid of the old.