Time to Rest

Nine autumns ago, assisted by children, I planted my first peonies on the hill behind my house. The 200 roots had been my first large wholesale order of perennial plants, and I was breathless with the excitement and expense of them. I’d never grown a peony before, never seen one in bloom, and I planted, as we all do, in a sort of blind hope. I planted all sorts of things in those years with that blind hope. Some of them are with me still, filling out Mother’s Day bouquets. Some of them told me, bluntly, that they did not want to grow here with me. 

I’d settled on eight varieties, and my supplier had only been able to send me six. I immediately ordered the remaining two varieties for the next fall. And since I was ordering anyway, why not throw in another couple of pretty varieties? Be careful, my well-intentioned gardening friend. This is how a peony addiction is born. 

Over the next several years, I planted down and down the hill, until I had quite a peony plot going back there. The hill saw the rise and fall of my bouquet business, and gave me the idea and hope for a new direction. It taught me what to do and not to do with field layout and growing. It was my training wheels for the behemoth project that is The Peony Fields. 

Five years after I planted those first roots, I took what I’d learned from growing back there, and expanded into my front fields. Only then, when the front field peonies flourished, did I realize I hadn’t planted my original roots in the best part of my farm at all. Peonies, I have found, are very vocal in this way. They’ll tell you if they like where you’ve planted them. 

The longer I worked my new fields, now assisted more and more by adults, the more the hill became a slow, expensive pain to maintain. It was built for hand labor, covered in landscape fabric, on, well, a hill. It became obvious that it would be better to move all my plants from there and repurpose the space for something else. 

So, this fall, I finally began to undo the work I began nine years ago. Shovels sank into soil undisturbed for all that time, and after much struggling, we brought up roots that were very different from the little cuties I left there back then. Gnarly baby gremlins that would fit in the palm of my hand had become wild rootballs one, two, three feet across. The variety ‘Festiva Maxima’ had grown so large that I resorted to digging it out with my tractor.

The amount of water expended on washing the roots would be extravagant if we didn’t have a well. For weeks I washed roots, first with the red mud sluicing out of the tilted tractor bucket, then on a stack of bulb crates for closer work. Ants nested in many of the roots. Black widows crawled out of some of them. Earthworms, beetles, and grubs were part of the ecosystem of each one. Gradually, with the washing, the Medusa’s-head shape of each root mass emerged. 

Now it was a question of how many parts to divide each peony into. Count the eyes, look for the space between them, sink two kitchen knives into the crown tissue, crack it apart. Find more soil, more ants, more worms, wash, wash, wash. Trim off the feeder roots, the broken, the rotten. Clean each piece up nicely. 

Each root went through baths of heat and disinfectant, ensuring that whatever issues I have on my hill don’t make it to the front fields or your garden. Some of the roots were headed to one of those places, some to the other. 

In the couple of years since I began selling roots from my farm, I’ve discovered the joy of having an empire. Roots travel from my little kingdom here to your garden, and you tell me how they’re doing. I have their sister plants here in my fields, and we compare notes. How did your Henries do this year? The Bowl of Beauty is phenomenal. Shirley Temple bloomed blush here this spring! How about there? So, when we packed up your roots and sent them away to you, a tingle of excitement went into each box. Did you see it when you opened them up again? I hope so. When they bloom, send photos.  

Now the hill is bare, except for the weeds, torn landscape fabric, and dripline sticking up here and there. Cleaning it up and planting a cover crop will be one of the final farm tasks before we break for the winter. What will we use it for when it’s had a couple of years off? Shrubs, maybe. Or our winter nursery. One thing I’ve learned in farming and in life? You have no idea who you’ll be two years from now. Make plans, but hold them lightly. You may need to dig them up again when you see what happens, wash them and cut off the rotten parts, share with friends, and begin again. 

So, for all that you’ve taught me and for all the hard work, thank you, hill. The Fields are beautiful and I couldn’t have planted them without you. You’ve earned your break, your sleep under a green blanket till the world goes around and everything shifts and we need your help again. For now, it’s time to rest.